Imperfect Tense
by Jukebox Hound
Summary: Revision, repost. Jenova’s legacy, living on through the Sorceresses, is forcing Squall to face an unstable Seifer, Cloud Strife, and yet another potential end of the world. Maybe paperwork really wasn’t so bad.
1. Chapter 1

**Pairings**: Squall/Seifer; Sephiroth/Cloud**  
Canon**: FFVII + FFVIII (no _CC, BC, AC, DoC_, or any other spinoffs)**  
Rating/Warnings**: R – Battle violence, implicit sexual content, foul language; time-travel, of sorts.**  
Summary**: Jenova's legacy, living on through the Sorceresses, is forcing Squall to face an unstable Seifer, Cloud Strife, and yet another potential end of the world. Maybe paperwork really wasn't so bad.**  
Disclaimer**: The original inspiration was Konitsu's _Bandages_.**  
Note**: An overall rewrite of the original. I promised fateofshadow another chapter after, what, two years of no updates? But rereading it to remember what had happened was _painful_. Hence, the revision, hopefully for the last time. No _major _events have been added or taken out.

This version is **unbeta'd **by anyone else.

* * *

**Word Count**: 2,291**  
Date**: 21 April 2010

* * *

**Imperfect Tense**_**  
Hades' Phoenix**_

**1. **

Monday.

_Squall dreamed._

_He stood in a field of pale flowers underneath a sky completely white in every direction. He knew he dreamed because there were no aches in his body, none of the exhaustion that had slowly been wearing him down, and instead it was a quiet kind of relaxation that made his limbs feel heavy. Squall walked until he realized he could walk forever and nothing would change._

_The hairs on the back of his neck suddenly prickled and Squall whirled around sharply, hand instinctively moving for Lion Heart at his hip. A grey wolf watched him with eerily sentient eyes that glowed faintly blue. They stared at one another, waiting for the other to make the first move, and then he blinked – _

_And there was no longer a wolf but a man with the same glowing eyes, a little shorter than Squall with hair startlingly similar to Zell's. The stark black of his clothing made him look sickly pale and exhausted, but he managed to carry the weight of an enormous sword over his back easily enough._

"_Who are you?" seemed the most sensible question._

"_Cloud," said the man softly. "Cloud Strife. Most of the time." He didn't seem particularly disturbed by that._

_The name wasn't familiar, and for a swift moment Squall wondered if all of this, this odd dream, was Shiva's doing. It didn't seem likely, but one never knew._

"_I was asleep," was the safe, neutral statement that he chose, watching Strife carefully, but there was no sign of aggression or disbelief._

_Strife frowned slightly. "Only the dead or the Cetra can use the Lifestream like this, Leonhart."_

"_How do you know me?" _

"_I__don't. The Cetra do."_

_It was Squall's turn to frown, and he opened his mouth to ask who the Cetra were and what kind of dream this was, exactly, but then Shiva's voice was_ calling him awake.

Squall lay in bed for a moment and stared up at the ceiling. Predawn light came in through the slatted blinds of the commander's quarters, washing the plain white walls with a faintly blue light. Griever's cross was warm on his bare chest as the Guardian Force, now that he was awake, withdrew into the back of his thoughts silently.

_Cloud Strife._

_Sorcerer? _he mused, though he'd never heard of a man taking that kind of position, only women. There was something about Strife's presence that had tainted the serenity of the field of flowers, the same kind of energy that had left a muted hum in the center of his chest when Rinoa had been around. Not as strong as when he was in the presence of a Sorceress, but _there _nevertheless.

_A new Guardian Force?_ But Squall snorted. _It was just a dream. Don't be stupid._

The weariness had returned and he lay on his back for a while, thinking about nothing in particular except that Quistis would likely be irritated if he showed up to his office so early. The only sound in his quarters was the quiet hum of Garden's utilities. He wondered if he needed to restock some of the supplies in the armory; he should get Irvine or Selphie to check on that.

The light had shifted a few degrees by the time Squall roused himself and went to shower. The water was warm and had the faintly metallic taste that Timber was never quite able to strip out. His clothes were freshly laundered; courtesy of Quistis' badgering of the cleaning staff, no doubt, without whom he probably would've worn the same clothes for days at a time. She never did approve of his casual attire as a Garden commander.

He ran a hand through damp hair as he stepped out of his quarters with the mechanical whoosh of an electronic door. He met no one on the way to his office. It was probably because of the early hour.

Zell had once quipped that everything Squall touched turned cold.

His office had light grey walls and nondescript carpet, even with the strengthening light crawling through the window. There was, as usual, paperwork that had somehow found its way to his desk overnight: military requests, political demands and entreaties, applications, and Squall wondered why people seemed incapable of helping themselves. Why they thought killing a Sorceress would make him qualified for this position, especially when he hadn't been driven by any sort of ideal. Just his own selfish reasons.

Leaning Lion Heart against the wall within reach, he worked through the papers as the rising sun shortened the shadows in his office.

"Squall?"

Quistis was leaning in through the door, eyes stern behind her glasses. When Squall just blinked at her, she entered, the whip coiled at her waist bouncing gently against her thigh.

"Did you sleep at all?"

"Yes," he said shortly, turning back to the mission report he held. _Casualties from monster attack…_

"You're here awfully early."

He didn't bother responding to such an obvious statement.

"Have you eaten?"

"No." _Scans showed monster stats were unusually high…_

Quistis bit her lip briefly. "Squall…"

"I'll have the secretary call for something from the cafeteria." It was about the time she arrived, wasn't it? Squall couldn't remember.

Thankfully the instructor let the matter drop, albeit with a frustrated sigh. "There's been another request from Galbadia for financial restitution."

Squall's eyes narrowed. "Garden isn't a charity."

"Nevertheless, they feel that SeeDs were responsible for much of the damage and that SeeDs should be out there rebuilding, or at least paying for it," she said dryly. When Squall snorted, she continued, "They probably came to me about the issue because I'm a woman and so they wouldn't have to deal with you."

Idiots.

"Oh, and Laguna's been trying to get a hold of you."

Damn it. "If this is about the treaty, tell him I haven't changed my mind."

"I have been. I can see where you get your stubbornness."

The glare he gave her literally caused the temperature to drop a few degrees. She crossed her arms and shifted her weight, looking at him more keenly than Squall was comfortable with. Before she could press him on this other issue (and it _was _an issue, wasn't it, when a person's coldness was no longer quite so metaphorical), he asked, "Have you ever heard of something called the Lifestream?"

She frowned in thought. "It sounds familiar. Maybe it was mentioned in one of the magic courses? I'm sorry, I don't know anything about it. Why?"

But Squall had already stopped listening, and after a moment he heard the clicking of her heels disappear outside and down the hallway. He was irritated with himself for having indulged a moment of whimsy.

_The monsters also appeared to display a basic understanding of attack strategy_…

It was a dream. It didn't mean anything.

…

Tuesday.

_Squall dreamed._

_The flowers were still soft yellow and delicate white, the sky still empty and unchanging. It smelled like rain that hadn't fallen yet._

_The blond man was there again, sitting in the flowers with his elbows on his knees and the huge sword on his back, the tip pressing heavily into the ground. Squall stood beside him and wondered if humans could naturally have those eyes._

_Time was impossible to measure in this place, so it could've been minutes or hours before Squall finally seated himself beside the other man, laying Lion Heart across his lap so its handle wouldn't dig into his hip. Neither spoke._

_Then Strife said, "People say war and death are the two worst things we can experience."_

_Squall said nothing._

"_They're wrong. The worst is the silence."_

…

"Squall! I'm so glad I finally managed to catch you. You're an incredibly difficult person to get a hold of."

The brunet stared back at his father, already vaguely regretting accepting the call. Laguna's voice was cheerful, despite the tinny quality of the vid-phone, but there were lines of worry around his eyes.

"What did you want?"

Laguna looked taken aback by his abruptness, but he recovered with an exhausted smile. "Well, something's…happened. Sort of. I mean, I'm not really sure _what _happened, but it can't be good."

If people were given a finite number of words per lifetime, business would be so much more efficient. "If you don't know, then find me someone who does."

Laguna was gently pushed aside and Kiros' dark face appeared, looking more tired than even the president. "Some of our weather stations have detected an anomaly on the northern continent. Unusual weather patterns, mostly, and tremors. One of these stations near Dollet has been reporting sightings of monsters that no one has seen before."

_Why haven't I heard this?_

"Our scientists don't think there's anything to be concerned about yet. There hasn't been any increase in monster-related deaths or anything, and they're keeping a sharp eye on the situation."

Squall made a mental note to speak with Quistis about getting their own reports on these monsters; if there was something truly going on, then the SeeDs needed to be prepared for their missions.

Laguna took back the vid-phone and said, "You remember what we spoke about last time, Squall?" His voice was still lighthearted, but there was an unmistakable spark of shrewdness in his eyes. "If there _is _a potential threat – "

"_No._"

"Surely you see – "

"Balamb Garden is an independent institution," Squall said flatly. "An alliance made with any nation not only calls into question our professionalism but also usurps the entire purpose of SeeD."

Laguna's bid to tie Balamb Garden to Esthar, wherein the nation would provide financial aid in peacetime and the Garden in turn would aid Esthar in times in of war by default, made Squall's skin crawl. _Garden belongs to no one_, and he severed the connection.

…

"_Look at me!"_

_But the other boy never turned in his direction, and he was confused and hurt because everyone else did, even if it was only because they were irritated or angered._

"_Look at me!" Seifer grabbed the other boy's arm and twisted, leaving a raw rash. "Don't ignore me!"_

_The other wrenched his arm away and swung a tiny fist, connecting painfully with Seifer's jaw, and then they were rolling around on the ground kicking and snarling like little wild animals._

"_SEIFER."_

"_Don't ignore me!"_

"_SEIFER."_

_The blond boy wrestled his way free and _looked up at Fujin, her one eye narrowed with worry. She carried a small tray in her callused hands.

"Fu?" Seifer rasped, blinking away his _dream? Memory? Ow, my goddamn head._

"EAT."

His bed felt cold though he'd been lying there for several hours, and he shivered as he pulled himself up to sit. He was _so weak, you insignificant little worm – _

There was a bowl of broth that warmed his hands when he cradled it, and he let his lips rest against the edge for a moment, imagining that the heat from the broth passed through the bowl and his cold lips to soothe the pounding in his temples. Had Fujin always had one eye? He couldn't remember. Must've been a violent fight to lose her eye, but the other guy probably lost his life. Pride, that his friend was so strong; guilt, that she was wasting her time on a broken man.

"OKAY?"

"I feel like shit and this tastes even worse," he sniped, but there was no heat behind his words. If he tilted the bowl slightly the dim fluorescent light would refract off the broth and bits of vegetable inside, and he didn't have to see the sadness in Fujin's expression. _Weak_, said the voices inside of him. _Pathetic. Sob stories only get you so far until the audience loses interest, and it looks like you lost that a long time ago._

Fujin's hands were cool against the feverish warmth of his skin as she gently but firmly pushed the bowl against his lips again. "DRINK," she commanded, and through all the timelines in his head Seifer felt a rush of anger (_how dare she patronize me_) and guilt (_fuck I'm such an immature shit_). But eventually he managed to finish the broth, as much as his nausea could handle, and then Fujin pressed him back down to the bed.

"SLEEP."

_How the mighty have fallen._

…

Vincent had been dreaming for a very long time. His breathing had evened out until his heart beat once every ten years and the flow of his blood mimicked the natural tides of the Planet.

He dreamed mostly of the past in vague blurs, like watching a room full of people through a rain-drenched window. The people were indistinct, soundless shapes playing out familiar scenes.

Sometimes he dreamed of darkness and blood and agony, and during those times he could hear CHAOS laughing.

But most often he lay quiet, cradled in the warmth of the Planet in a sleep that was as close to death as he could come. He could see the Lifestream, touch it, but he couldn't join the cycle of birth-death-rebirth that was the right of all mortals.

Vincent recalled once dreaming of himself on a cliff overlooking Midgar, the sun low in the sky and the ground as dry as a desert. He stood at the very edge and when he looked to his side, Cloud was sitting by his feet, staring off into space towards the city. Vincent glanced behind them and wasn't surprised to see a large patch of dirt stained dark with old blood. Nothing was said, and after a while the dream dissipated.

But now his dreams were changing. The pulse of the Planet was shifting, growing faster, and Vincent could feel awareness returning to him.


	2. Chapter 2

Ha, I left up the old version of this fic for those people who _do _prefer it to this one. If you don't mind waiting until I catch this new version up with the old, then you'll finally get new chapters.

* * *

**Word Count**: 2,578**  
Date**: 25 April 2010**  
Note**: In all seriousness, a relationship between someone like pre-game General Sephiroth and someone like underage, insecure Cloud would be an abuse of power in far more than just an official capacity. (The original version _sort of _mentioned that.)

* * *

**Imperfect Tense**_**  
Hades' Phoenix**_

**2.**

Mako felt like the burn of ice. To a boy that had grown up in the Nibel mountains, the cold was a fact of life, something to be endured, but mako seared the flesh with an iciness that made skin bubble and muscles spasm uncontrollably. The Lifestream itself didn't burn; instead it left an ache deep in Cloud's body that was almost worse for being intangible.

Time had no meaning here and so Cloud didn't know how long he'd been under this endlessly white sky. It felt like yesterday when he'd allowed the Cetra to take his living body, but it could've been centuries. Eons. And there was no peace here.

_Aeris? Is this the Promised Land?_

_No, Cloud, I'm sorry. It won't be until you can forgive yourself and let go._

But that would mean letting go of his mother, of Zack, _Sephiroth_, letting them die all over again. So he remained in a world of whiteness and flowers, untouched and undisturbed except by his own dreams.

Then, for the first time, there was someone else.

It wasn't Aeris, or anyone else he'd ever known. This man was a fighter in his own right, carrying a battle-scarred gunblade as easily as if it were part of his own body. His eyes were cold but in the way that the natural ice of Nibelheim was cold, like Sephiroth's when he'd still been human, not like something twisted or cruel. The name Leonhart meant nothing to him.

After the second, then the third time Leonhart appeared, Cloud was no longer surprised. At first he'd been defensive, but when Leonhart never pressed for personal information – didn't seem to recognize him as the world's hero, or even care – Cloud ignored him like one ignores a particularly ugly piece of furniture. Some part of him was faintly amused to realize that he'd finally found another person as reluctant for conversation as himself, and so he was startled when Leonhart suddenly spoke.

"There aren't records of this 'Lifestream'."

Cloud rolled those flatly-spoken words over. If there were no records of the Lifestream anymore, then how long had he been here? _(Hurt as though it happened yesterday.)_

"It's the life force of the Planet." He stared up into the empty sky. "It's where our souls go after we die."

There was a pause. "And the Cetra?"

"Cetra…they're Ancients. They were here before us. Before humans." Felt so strange to be speaking aloud. How long had it been? He'd been here a long time. Felt like yesterday.

Leonhart fell silent. Cloud leaned back on his hands and closed his eyes, listening to the creak of leather as Leonhart shifted his weight and the Lifestream's whispers (_he's rather young to be a commander, but Sephiroth wasn't legal to drink when he burned Wutai to the ground_) that hovered around both men. _It's always the quiet ones you've gotta watch out for, right, kiddo?_

"I shouldn't be here."

Cloud glanced over without turning his head, but Leonhart was staring off into the distance. "I'm not dead, or a Cetra."

Cloud wasn't very interested. Souls passed through the Lifestream endlessly, through birth and death, and had done so since the Planet first bore life. Cloud had never come across any of these others (_Vincent wasn't really there, it must've been a dream, just a dream_), but they were still there, living and moving on. "The Cetra must've had a reason to bring you here, then."

"Is this to do with Ultimecia," he asked, his hand tightened around the hilt of his gunblade, "or some other Sorceress?"

This frustration was the first true emotion Cloud had seen in the otherwise aloof man. He didn't respond, preferring instead to keep an eye on Leonhart's body language, waiting for the tenseness that would betray a sudden move. Casually he lifted his hand over his shoulder and let it curl loosely around Ultima's hilt. Not threatening. Merely waiting.

_Avoid a fight when you can_, Zack had said. _When you can't, make damn sure you're the one finishing it._

When the silence stretched, Leonhart relaxed slightly, those odd grey-blue eyes darker than usual. He couldn't have been more than seventeen, eighteen at most, but the scar across the bridge of his nose was old and he carried himself like a blooded soldier.

_Zack looked like that whenever someone talked about the Wutai War_.

Long after Leonhart disappeared and Cloud was left alone, he sat with his arms wrapped around his knees and the broadsword heavy against his shoulders.

_If I'm seeing Leonhart, why not – _

He didn't finish the thought.

…

Light burned Vincent's eyes. The cavern's walls were coated in a thick layer of ice that shone faintly blue, refracting the weak sunlight that came in through the small entrance into multicolored prisms. Vincent knew he'd been sleeping for years and years, but little had changed in this cave, creating the surreal feeling that the world outside would be just as he'd left it.

A thick layer of ice had formed over him and it took a few mako-enhanced struggles to crack it. He rose slowly, his body stiff and almost unresponsive, but it at least gave him a few moments to adjust to the light. There was a distinct lack of the Lifestream's sharp, acidic scent, like ozone.

_How long have you slept, Valentine?_

Vincent flexed his hands to loosen up his fingers. One was still human, still callused and scarred, the other brassy and spotless. He waited patiently for his heart to regain its normal rhythm, and his thoughts were just as slow, having grown used to the unhurried cycles of the Planet.

It took a little longer to remember how to stand. The first few steps were painful until his muscles loosened a bit more, and were wobbly until his body found its balance. It took him a while, and he had to brace himself against the icy walls, but eventually he was able to drag himself through the short tunnel and come out at the entrance.

The Northern Crater yawned before him as though a giant had scooped out an enormous handful of earth. Everything was blanketed in snow and the wind howled down the crater's sides under a sky of bruised, roiling clouds, as far as Vincent could see once his eyes adjusted. It was a desolate and lonely landscape, and he had the sense that he was the only living thing for miles around.

Under the sharpness of the cold, it smelled like it was about to rain.

Vincent looked down at himself as the wind snatched at his body. Though his body's rhythms had been slowed to near-death for so long, his hair had grown long enough to tangle around his legs and elbows, and his clothes were more like the thin, fragile cloth of a long-dead corpse's shroud than something actually useable. Sorrow pressed down on his heart at the signs of aging: evidence that the others he fought alongside were likely long dead and gone. Expecting such consequences was different from actually _experiencing _them.

_I hope for Cloud's sake that he was able to move on._

…

Wednesday.

The warmth of blood and the flash of a blade brought Squall an inner serenity he'd never found anywhere else. The training room was hardly a battlefield, but it was better than nothing, and good old-fashioned slaughter did more for him than any counselor that Kadowaki tried to recommend to him.

When the last grat lay in a pile of steaming meat, someone started clapping. Zell had shown up some minutes ago but Squall had ignored him, more concerned with the way Lion Heart parted through flesh.

"Damn, Squall," the blond whistled, shoving his hands in his pockets and strolling forward now that Squall had paused. "If I didn't know any better I'd say you had a grudge against anything big, fat, and green."

"What do you want?"

Unperturbed, Zell just grinned. "Your daddy sent over some reports that Quistis wants you to see. None of the cadets were brave enough to interrupt their big scary commander slaughtering monsters like the hand of Hyne, so they sent the head of security instead."

Squall grunted, both in acknowledgment and also irritation at the mention of Laguna. He pulled out a cloth that had been tucked into one of his belts to wipe the gore from his gunblade.

Zell rocked on his heels in that always-moving, not-quite-impatient way of his. "Stressed?" When Squall glanced at him, he went on, "You only come out to the training room nowadays when something's pissed you off. Otherwise the rest of us never see you outside your office."

Zell spoke the truth, of course. Squall didn't particularly _regret _his position as commander, though it hadn't been his choice; regrets were generally a waste of time and energy. But he couldn't deny that spending day after day without seeing the field made him feel caged and restless, and unlike the months when he'd practically slept with Lion Heart as a pillow he was now lucky to use the weapon once a week. Even now he was being called away to a meeting that probably didn't actually need his presence, and _when did things become so mundane?_

It took Zell calling his name several times to make him realize that he'd entirely spaced out.

"Oi, Squall, you all right?"

"I'm fine." He sheathed Lion Heart and headed towards the room's entrance. The blond jogged lightly to catch up, taking two steps for each of Squall's longer strides.

"We're all worried about you, y'know."

Squall keyed the door closed and continued walking.

"I mean, you were never exactly a social butterfly, but ever since we defeated Ultimecia you've been more of a bastard than usual. And I mean that in a loving brotherly sense."

Technically, now that Laguna had shown his face after all these years Squall was less of a bastard than Zell.

"And I know you're not one to talk about things – "

Squall snorted.

" – but what exactly happened during the Time Compression? It's like you left part of yourself behind."

Zell's words made his breath catch slightly. They had also been Rinoa's words. Then she left. But now he had to wonder if the other SeeDs had been talking behind his back or if Zell was simply more insightful than he'd given the blond credit for.

An uncharacteristic burst of temper had him whirling around and fisting his hands in the front of Zell's shirt to drag him closer. Nose to nose and the leather of his gloves creaking with the force of his grip, Squall said softly, "Many things happened, Zell, but there are also things happening _now_. Tell Quistis and the others that my person life is not up for public purview. We are _SeeD_. Act like it."

Though Zell looked intimidated, both men knew perfectly well that the martial artist could've broken out of Squall's grip easily. Squall released him roughly and continued towards the conference room, not bothering to see whether Zell followed him or not.

_They're determined to find something wrong with me_.

_Haven't I given them enough?_

Zell caught up to him once more. Squall wondered why the blond seemed to trust him enough that he didn't bother keeping at least three feet between them.

"Y'know, you talk about moving on and all that shit, but man, you live in the past more than any of us."

Squall pretended not to hear.

He was good at that.

…

_("You haven't got what it takes to be a SOLDIER, kid. Gods, just get the fuck outta here.")_

Cloud was hunched over his knees, clutching his head and gritting his teeth so hard against the pain in his skull that they threatened to crack.

_("The SOLDIER will prove to be a valuable control subject. If we can get Specimen C to surpass those benchmarks, then we'll be that much closer to finding a more efficient method of producing SOLDIERs.")_

Zack.

_("Specimen C is a failure. Throw him out, the wolves will take care of the body.")_

No –

_("Doctor, he should be dead! All programs indicate his body shouldn't have been able to handle such a strong influx of Jenova cells!")_

Aeris –

_("Fascinating. Are there hidden depths in you to be cut out and exposed on my table, Specimen C?")_

Through the screaming in his head he dimly registered thin arms wrapping around his shoulders and a gentle, warm weight pressing against his back. "Oh, Cloud," Aeris murmured, and she felt _safe_, she smelled like flowers and damp earth and rain and _safe_.

"I can't – it doesn't _stop_," he ground out, digging his fingers into his scalp a little harder, "it's like it happened yesterday and it gets all – all _mixed up_ – "

This incarnation of Aeris was only an aspect of her original self; behind her the Cetra were a vast consciousness, and through the Lifestream she could feel Cloud. There was so much _wrong _inside of him, some of it his own doing and a lot of it because of what had been done to him.

Aeris pulled Cloud's hands away from his skull, ignoring the blood that streaked his fingertips, and slowly coaxed him to uncurl into a more natural sitting position. Slowly he leaned back against her, head tilted against her shoulder, and Aeris ran her fingers through his hair as though she could untangle the sickly, poisonous green of the bit of Lifestream inside him.

"Aeris, what's wrong?" he said suddenly, and when Cloud saw the sorrow in her face he felt himself tense all over again.

"Cloud," she started, then paused, and Cloud felt dread coil in his stomach because her own voice had deepened to the voice of a whole race, "not all of Jenova was destroyed in the Northern Crater."

"What?" he whispered numbly (see, should've remembered that when things seem too good to be true they usually are).

Aeris' fingers continued combing through his hair, but it wasn't reassuring anymore. It was like a master stroking the head of a favored pet – not Aeris anymore, not at all. "You killed Sephiroth's body. Not his and Jenova's will."

Cloud pulled away, half-rising to one knee and facing her. Ultima was off to the side, within reach even here in the relative peace of the Lifestream. _Don't let your guard down_, Zack told him laughingly; _Don't let your guard down even when you think you're safe_, Sephiroth said with utmost seriousness. (Couldn't fail the general, he might get tired of you and throw you away and then you really wouldn't be any better than a whore.)

Zack told him to say fuck this, bad idea to fight when you hadn't gotten your head on straight yet, but Sephiroth said to just shut up and follow orders. Cloud didn't know what to say for himself.

"She's been incarnating herself into a select few people, trying to create another figurehead. Another Sephiroth."

"…Is that why Leonhart keeps showing up? Does he have something to do with this?" _Nonono_ _not again_.

Aeris – or what looked like Aeris – smiled, but it wasn't a sympathetic expression. She leaned forward to put her hand against his forehead, and Cloud couldn't bring himself to lift Ultima against her.

"This may seem sudden, Cloud, but it's been coming for a long time," she said just before every nerve in Cloud's body snapped taut with agony.

Time had no meaning here.


	3. Chapter 3

**Word Count**: 3,118**  
Date**: 25 April 2010**  
Note**: I think Cloud's turning out mildly more crazy this time around. Also, Squall makes me laugh.

* * *

**Imperfect Tense**_**  
Hades' Phoenix**_

**3.**

Wednesday.

Hyperion left streaks of light in the sun as the blade sang through the air, twisting and striking out in strict control and precision. It moved with the grace of a living thing, a serpent, beautiful and swift and deadly.

Seifer felt most centered, most like himself, when his gunblade was in his hands and whispering through arcs and parries. Hyperion was as familiar to him as breathing, and when he went through the motions of the forms the _dreamsmemorieswishes_ no longer pulled his mind into strange directions.

Fujin watched silently several meters away, leaning against a large rock with her arms crossed. This was the first time in weeks Seifer had been outside, though he'd struggled out of bed a few days ago and had been as restless as Dincht ever since. He was nowhere near his old level of skill; Hyperion was still like an extension of his body, but lacking that former unconscious grace. He was drenched with sweat from an exercise that had once been a mere warm-up, and it was obvious to her trained eye that his battered body was unable to keep up with its own muscle memory.

She could admit, if only to herself, that it was a painful thing to see. Not that Fujin blamed him, not entirely. He was an asshole because it kept people from seeing the insecurity underneath, but sometimes she wished that he would recognize that there were people who cared whether he lived or died and not because they wanted to use him in some way.

When his arm started shaking and his grip became white-knuckled, Fujin stepped in with a quick, light touch to his shoulder.

"ENOUGH."

"What?" he demanded, startled out of his concentration.

"STOP."

He shrugged her hand away and snorted irritably. "I'm fine, all right? I'm not a fucking _amateur._"

Fujin stepped back and let him strike invisible opponents a few more times. Then, as she knew he would, he misjudged a swing and threw himself off-balance. Quickly she ducked under his larger form and caught him, managing to throw one of his arms across her shoulders so that he didn't take them both down. He grunted but, though his teeth were gritted so hard the muscles stood out in his jaw, he didn't fight her. Keeping silent, Fujin led him slowly back to the small vacation cottage she and Raijin had rented under aliases.

"Where's Raijin?" Seifer asked quietly. His voice was rough.

"WORK." The cost of their rental and taking care of a mentally unstable man had forced Raijin to find work while Fujin, as the more level-headed of the two, remained with Seifer.

Their cottage was one of many on a large plot of land set aside for tourists behind a larger building that served as the administration office. It was small but comfortable enough for their purposes and, most importantly, few questions had been asked.

They were nearly at the back door when Seifer suddenly stiffened and made a small, pained noise like a wounded animal. Fujin immediately let him slump to his knees so she could grab his chin and force him to look at her.

The sight of his face scared her more than anything. The flush of exertion had already drained away, leaving him sickly pale, and his eyes were glazed over and sightless. The sweat on his brow had turned cold (_he looks like he did when Ultimecia was displeased and took it out on him_) and she wondered what the hell she should do –

"No," he hissed through chapped lips, "You're dead – "

With swift decisiveness Fujin released her hold on his chin and backhanded him across the face. Though she was perhaps a third of Seifer's body mass, she was hardly weak, and the blow sent him reeling back onto the grass in unconsciousness.

Well. Perhaps she should've pulled her punch a little.

Pulling his limp form back up across her shoulders, she staggered into the cottage with him.

Hopefully Raijin would be back soon.

…

Even trained and seasoned mercenaries were susceptible to hero worship. Quistis had had some time to get used to her own fanclub. Squall…hadn't.

The conference room was filled with fully-fledged SeeDs with the new headmistress, Xu, near the front. Quistis had taken over the meeting in respect of Squall's antisocial self, but even sitting to the side of the large oblong table with his arms crossed and grat blood spattered all over his leathers, he still managed to draw more than his share of awed looks. His response was to narrow his eyes further and effectively pretend that no one else in the room existed.

It would've been funny if the reason for this meeting hadn't been so potentially serious.

The large white screen at the front of the room behind Quistis displayed the motion-blurred image of an unidentified monster. When she clicked to another slide, the image was just clear enough to show tentacles and not much else.

"Where did these come from?" asked a SeeD that she recognized as a former Trepie.

"The pictures were sent to us from the Estharian outposts up in Dollet and the other northern areas. A lot of them were taken by civilians, but none survived the encounters. They had to be scavenged from the bodies by the scientists there."

"So there's no Scan information on these things?" asked another incredulously.

"Unfortunately, no. All we have are the scientists' guesses."

"Well, shit," the SeeD muttered, and flushed under Quistis' stern look.

Perhaps it was because he did it so rarely, but when Squall spoke people tended to shut up and lean in slightly to listen. He really did have a pleasant voice, Quistis thought, low and quiet and a little rough; it was just rarely used to say anything _nice_ outside of missions.

"I'll speak with President Loire about sending SeeDs to kill or capture these monsters."

It was a good idea, if as many people had been killed as the reports said. The instructor agreed.

…

_He saw eyes that were glowing green with cat-slit pupils above lips that curled into a vicious sneer – _

_**mychildmysonmypower**_

_He saw eyes that were glowing blue and couldn't seem to focus properly, as though there were too many voices talking behind them – _

_**mine**_

_He saw eyes that were stormy-grey-blue and familiar and so cold – _

_**iwillhaveallmychildren**_

_And suddenly he knew what was going to happen except that the last time he tried to be a hero he ended up the villain._

When Seifer woke up he thought he could see a pattern of emerald-green threads woven through the air. They looked like magic, but with the sickliness of a Status ailment, and some of the threads disappeared under the skin of his chest. The sight made something inside of him gibber with disgust and terror.

"How're you feeling, yanno?"

Raijin's voice was soft but it still managed to startle Seifer into a sharp curse. (Losing his touch, hadn't even noticed the guy's presence.) "Hyne fuck, Raijin, give a guy some warning," he muttered. "I feel like Leonhart took his gunblade to my head."

His mouth was running on autopilot as he tried to remember what he'd just been thinking about. It seemed important, important enough for him to consider calling up Balamb's precious commander himself. Needed to talk to Leonhart.

"WHY?"

Had he spoken aloud? Seifer hadn't noticed. He smirked at his own idiocy bitterly and let his head thunk back against the headboard.

Raijin put a hand behind his dark head in his usual pose of confusion. "Seifer, what's up, man? You've got us seriously worried, yanno?"

"TRAINING. PASSED OUT."

Seifer looked around the room for a distraction, kicking himself for not paying attention to his own damn mouth. The bedroom was too small, spare, and white to be truly comfortable, like one of the few hotel rooms Seifer had ever used. The one other bed in the room, pushed up against the opposite wall, belonged to Fujin, and her chakram was leaning against the plywood nightstand.

Sudden guilt for what he was putting his friends through made his anger flounder and drown. At least he couldn't see the poisonous green threads anymore.

"C'mon, Seifer, we're here for you."

Yeah, he knew. Hyne knew _why_, but he knew.

"When you've got a Sorceress in your head, it's like…knowing that you're never alone," he admitted, staring up at the ceiling so that he could pretend he wasn't saying such stupid sentimental bullshit. _No one kan hurt you_, Ultimecia would say as she smiled out of Edea's face, _no one would dare to_. "And I could _feel _her magic, it was like…"

He suddenly barked in laughter. "It was like a fucking high. I felt like a god and that every other poor fucker was just waiting for me to step up to the plate."

He stopped talking because he knew that Fujin, at least, would be able to come to the right conclusion. Un-Junctioning a Guardian Force too quickly could do permanent damage, so it wasn't that far of a stretch to imagine what the death of a Sorceress would do to her Knight.

"COLLAPSE OUTSIDE. WHY?"

Seifer closed his eyes and snorted tiredly. "Guess the voices have come back. Not Ultimecia, though. Someone else that knows how to fuck around with the whole Knight thing."

"A new Sorceress, yanno?" Raijin asked fearfully.

"Seems I ain't the only man in her life, either. She wants Leonhart, too. Must be the leather."

…

Cloud stood in a city and wished, not for the first time, that the Cetra had just let him pass on. Didn't seem like such a complicated wish, really.

The last city he'd seen was Neo-Midgar, grey and cold and grimy with pollution, populated with hollow-eyed people that had narrowly survived Meteor and the more mundane issues of starvation and sickness. But this city was warm and alive. Clean. There were green growing things, and trees, and flowers sprouting up from every patch of dirt between busy roads and walkways. But Aeris – no, the _Cetra_ – said this _was _Midgar, just a few hundred years in the future and now its own city-state. Still the most technologically advanced place on earth.

The people he passed on the street weren't suspicious or calculating, didn't look at his SOLDIER eyes and freeze in terror, and the sight of his sword just earned strange, honestly curious looks. They talked loudly and amiably, nothing like the hushed murmurs of a war-torn population. He was relieved to realize that a fair number spoke a tongue that was close enough to Cloud's own that he could understand.

_How the hell am I going to do this?_

Hands in his pockets and slightly slouched out of habit (_best not to draw attention, just make yourself small)_, he set off in a random direction, figuring that if the Cetra hadn't bothered to tell him where to go then it wasn't his fault if he wasted time. He absently wondered if the few gil in his pocket would be considered money or museum artifacts.

…

Marly Gordon was a young waitress with coffee-dark skin and trusting brown eyes who lived, if not happily then at least contentedly, with her father and two dogs out in the suburbs. She'd gotten her job at the _Warbling Chocobo_ to pay her way through a school that would give her the chance to become a SeeD doctor, in memory of her beloved grandfather. She was chatting with one of the regular patrons when someone walked into the restaurant, so she excused herself and headed towards the new customer.

The man that seated himself at the small table by the window was short and too thin under all that lean muscle, with fair hair that vaguely reminded her of the restaurant's namesake. She couldn't see his face, but it was hard to miss the enormous sword that he swung with startling ease off his back and leaned against the table. The sight made her smile waver a bit, but she was nothing if not polite and grinned when she got to his table.

"May I help you?"

He looked up at her, and if she hadn't had such an active imagination anyway she might've thought his eyes were…well, _glowing_, like an active spell. After a long pause, he finally said quietly, "Just some tea, please."

Though surprised by the simple order, she flashed a cheerful smile and turned on her heel. When she brought the small pot of steaming tea a few minutes later, the man was staring out the window with his chin propped on a hand and a distant expression on his face.

"Will that be all?" she asked. "A scone, maybe? Soup? Our cook, Aya, makes a pretty mean raspberry pastry."

But the man just shook his head. Then paused, and said, "Do you know a Squall Leonhart?"

"_Everyone _knows Commander Leonhart," she replied immediately, then flushed when she realized how immature that sounded. "Well, not personally, of course. Don't you? I mean, he's _Commander Leonhart._"

Even his _name _was cool.

"I've been…out of the loop for a while." He glanced up at her again. "Tell me about him."

She shrugged. "He was made a SeeD commander after he defeated Ultimecia and her Knight," which alone was enough to endear him to Esthar, even if he hadn't been President Loire's son. Some of her classmates thought he was the best thing to grace the earth since Hyne himself. _In leather. _"Youngest one ever, too. They say he's wicked with a gunblade but that he doesn't really leave Balamb Garden, I guess because he doesn't like the attention." He'd only ever given one or two interviews to the press himself, outside of official Garden business, and each time it had been short, to the point, and utterly devoid of any personal information. "Weird to think that he and the President are related. They're just so different, y'know?"

"…Aah."

She smiled again, mostly because this guy looked like he could use a few, and wondered where his slight accent came from. Northern continent? Maybe up near Trabia? "Anything else I can help you with? Latest medical research, some celebrity gossip?"

He snorted softly and shook his head.

Later, when Marly was doing her rounds in the restaurant, she found her thoughts returning to the silent figure sitting in the corner, alone, cup of untouched tea long since gone cold. He looked like he was only a few years older than she, but his gaze made her feel like she was once again a little girl sitting on her grandfather's knee, listening to his deep voice tell her stories about what it was like being a mercenary before SeeD came along. Her grandfather had had a limp, the result of a battlefield wound that hadn't received a Cure quick enough to heal quite right, but she remembered his hands the most: big and dark, thick-fingered, crossed with scars and rough with calluses. Marly wondered if this stranger would have the same kind of hands under those gloves.

Near sunset the man stood, ready to leave, and Marly appeared at his side. He reached in his pockets to dump several gil coins on the table, then frowned.

"I don't have enough. If you could find your manager – "

"Don't worry about it," she said kindly. "It was just a cup of tea. On the house."

If anything, his frown only deepened. Marly was once again struck with how his eyes seemed to _glow_. "I'd rather work off the difference."

Marly looked at him sternly. "Look, buddy, don't worry about it. A single pot of tea isn't exactly going to send anyone into debt. Think of it as Estharian hospitality."

He stared at her for a long moment before nodding. "Thank you."

Then he slung that impossible sword over his shoulder and disappeared into the crowd outside. Marly picked up one of the gil and was confused to see a coin resembling some of the ones on display at the national history museum.

…

Once he knew what he was looking for, it wasn't difficult to find.

Cloud stared up at the imposing gates that led to the seat of Esthar's government. The building was several stories high and built like a palace, sitting behind a long stretch of garden, with intricately-carved columns and walls and the Estharian seal set in rare metals over the double entrance doors.

With a silent leap, Cloud was on top of the surrounding stone wall where a convenient tree hid him from any casual passersby on the street or in the palace. Zack's illegal escapades (of which he remembered just enough to be glad he couldn't recall the details) and his time with AVALANCHE had taught him where to look for security. Guards were at all the visible entrances, naturally, as well as a few cameras nestled into blind corners and crannies. A well-placed spell would take out the latter, but if Esthar was as good as it looked, the blow would probably just trigger a more hardcore back-up system.

C'mon, said Zack, what's the harm in trying? It'd just make the challenge more interesting.

The boy can't afford any more black marks on his record, Sephiroth reprimanded, and Cloud felt very small. Couldn't fail the general –

Well, no, it had been _Sephiroth _that failed –

_Goddamnit, shut up shut up shut up!_

Cloud remembered when he'd failed the SOLDIER exam, how he'd been ready to leave in humiliated self-loathing to a town that hated him and a mother that probably should've been put in an institution; it was Sephiroth of all people that had pulled him aside, which was strange, because they might've been intimate in some ways but Cloud had never been stupid enough to think it was anything _more _than that. (Right? That sounded right. Maybe. Maybe they _did _have conversations outside of training? Except. No. People didn't like it when Cloud talked.)

Sephiroth had said, _You would give up your dream for so little? _And when Cloud argued that he was the general, he didn't have to worry about things like that_,_ the man told him, _Leave, then. SOLDIER has no use for cowards._ Which stung, worse than when Tifa's dad had beaten him for his little girl's accident, but it did what Zack's wheedling couldn't and made him choose to stay. Maybe if Nibelheim hadn't gone up like a fucking blowtorch –

Felt like yesterday.

_Don't think about that_.

Cloud sat back on his heels to wait for the sun to finish setting, thinking about nothing at all.


	4. Chapter 4

**Word Count**: 2,911**  
Date**: 18 June 2010**  
Note**: This is starting to more obviously tread the edge of crack. Ahaha.  
Unbetaed.

* * *

**Imperfect Tense**_**  
Hades' Phoenix**_

**4.**

Thursday.

Straightening her protesting back, Rinoa wiped the sweat from her brow and gave a tiredly cheerful smile to the man offering her a plastic cup of water.

"Thanks," she sighed. The cool water soothed the dust in her throat.

The man, an older gentleman with salt-and-pepper hair, grinned. "Hey, you're doing the work of three people out here. Least I can do."

There were whole crews of people clearing out the rubble left from Ultimecia's destruction and others were beginning to rebuild in the places that had already been cleaned up. Rinoa was helping to carry the timber splintered beyond usefulness to an already enormous woodpile, to be reused as fuel.

She handed the empty cup back to the man with another grateful smile and glanced down ruefully at her filthy clothes. "I only wish there was more I could do," she sighed. "There's still so much to do, and so many people without a place to go…"

"You wanna know something?" the man interrupted smoothly, gesturing at the construction going on around them. "Honestly, I think something like this _needed_ to happen."

Rinoa gave him a strange look.

"Hey, I know you didn't grow up 'round here, but look. People are actually working together for once, and for Galbadians, that's pretty unusual."

That didn't make her feel much better. Almost no one had recognized her name, and no one outside of SeeD and Esthar's government had any knowledge of her being a Sorceress, but seeing the destruction that a Sorceress had caused made her want to prove that not _all _of them were cruel, that her magic could be used to help and heal as well.

"Are you all right?" the man asked worriedly as Rinoa rubbed the heel of a hand against her temple.

"Just the sun, I think." Pushing aside the growing headache, she raised her empty cup and added, "This'll help."

"Well, I'd best be moving on, m'dear," the older man said cheerfully as he hefted the water pack over his shoulder. "Be careful now, don't work yourself into a collapse."

"Thank you," Rinoa called, and waved as he walked on.

She threw herself back into the work. When some of the workers started singing a lewd old bar song, she eventually got over her embarrassment and even managed to contribute a few lines. These people were so different from SeeDs: no flash of weaponry, no sense that behind a friendly face was a contract killer. The Galbadians were angry and scared about having to rebuild their lives, but these were _normal_ concerns, these were people she could know and understand.

_I'm sorry, Squall. You frightened me._

Her small body struggled to lift a heavy beam, and she managed a smile at the two girls who dashed over to help.

_We never made each other happy, and…it's like you left part of yourself behind._

When the beam was moved, she paused to tie back the hair beginning to stick to her sweaty cheeks.

"Miss Rinoa? Are you okay?"

Rinoa was startled, but she managed a smile. "I'm fine. Is everything all right?"

The girl shook her head. "I'm sorry, you just…looked kind of sad. Is there anything I can do?"

The girl's kindness made Rinoa's smile feel less forced. "Just thinking, is all. Come on, want to take a lunch break with me?" When the girl smiled, Rinoa mentally pushed away anything darker than the shade of a nearby tree.

It was getting into early evening when Rinoa first felt that something was wrong.

The girl was pleasant company. Lunch was iced tea and sandwiches donated by a kindly old woman, and the two chatted in the weak shade of a tree away from the chaos of construction. Rinoa had thought her headache was caused by the heat and exertion, but instead of lunch making it better the space behind her eyes began throbbing steadily. She groaned.

"Rinoa?" the girl asked hesitantly.

"Ah, sorry, just a headache." Rinoa's smile came out more like a grimace. She got to her feet and brushed off the seat of her trousers, then held out a hand. "C'mon, we should get probably get back in there."

The girl took her hand but gave her a scrutinizing look. "You sure? You look kinda pale."

"I'll be _fine_," she said, and though the girl looked dubious she followed Rinoa back to the nearest construction job.

Focusing on something else eventually allowed Rinoa to forget the headache. Sweat and aching muscles and watching something be rebuilt beneath her hands was cleansing, in its own way; there were no weapons, no exchange of gil for human life.

A stubborn piece of lumber was refusing to be budged and had already left several long splinters in people's soft palms. Rinoa looked left, then right, checking that the others around her were too frustrated by this obstacle to pay her much attention, and she surreptitiously pointed a finger at the stubborn wood.

Wood and stone were blown into pieces, shattered with the force of an explosion. Rinoa and everyone within five meters were forcibly lifted off their feet and thrown backwards, and Rinoa only stopped when her back struck a half-fallen brick wall with breath-stopping impact.

She managed to wonder what the hell had just happened before she blacked out.

…

_Squall dreamed._

_He dreamed of silent, snow-covered forests; of ice-toothed caves; of bitterly frozen winds. Cold arms slid around his waist from behind._

My lovely little lion. _Shiva's voice echoed as though it had to pass a great distance to reach him, even when she held him so close that her breath, if she'd had any, would've wafted against the nape of his neck._

You're restless. Lions weren't meant to be tamed, much less fall asleep.

"_I have obligations," Squall told her, looking ahead blindly._

_When the Guardian Force laughed, it sounded like the cracking of ice. _You forget I know you better than yourself.

_Squall frowned, but he couldn't deny it. The memories he'd given up for her were in her possession, fueling her power, and he would give more than that if would keep her with him; but it was fucking terrifying sometimes to have someone so intimately aware of him._

You should find him. The fiery one. _There was a slight distaste in her voice. She'd never been very compatible with people that fought with hot fury._

"…_What?"_

The one that hurt you.

"_Seifer didn't hurt me," Squall denied automatically, then had to resist the urge to smack himself. He continued, "He's a liability. He's too skilled and unpredictable to be allowed among civilians."_

If he were truly so dangerous, you would have already seen him causing chaos.

…_That wasn't the point. _

_Shiva, of course, knew exactly what he was thinking._ You're lying to yourself, my little lion.

_Squall's expression twisted into what would be called a sulk on anyone else. He opened his mouth to argue – _

– _and Shiva's arms suddenly tightened around him until Squall felt his ribs creak in protest. The landscape around him heaved and rolled under his feet like an earthquake, and the air felt oppressive, expectant._

Leave us!

_The Guardian Force's voice was a scream of fierce rage and power. Squall gasped aloud for breath as her arms tightened even further and the light of her Diamond Dust shattered the air, attacking something he couldn't see or hear or feel; a strange and unnatural cry reverberated in his bones. An ache was building in his temples._

_Then it was Shiva howling aloud and Squall was torn from her gasp, thrown into a blackness so deep he briefly wondered if he was dying. The sudden silence, the lack of white snow, the loudness of his panting with bruised ribs was shocking as he tried to sense _something _other than this impenetrable darkness. Squall knew he was alone from the unmistakable emptiness that came from un-Junctioning. He missed the comfort of Lion Heart's well-worn leather hilt._

_The ache in his head increased to a pounding, debilitating agony._

_Hissing, Squall fell to his knees with his skull cradled in his hands. His teeth gritted and bit through his tongue, filling his mouth with the hot metallic taste of blood._

_**my son**_

_**you said you'd be my knight**_

"_Rinoa – ?"_

_**you said you'd always be there for me**_

_**my precious son**_

…

By all rights, Laguna should've been asleep hours ago. The world seemed determined to throw as many conferences, alarmed scientists, and angry politicians as it could to see when he'd start screaming his fool head off. With Ward in the north keeping the Estharian scientists company, and with Kiros having his own duties, Laguna was being tempted into going mercenary on everyone's asses.

Yawning loudly, he walked into his office with a pile of papers. It was a typical office, as far as the presidential ones went, though without many books on the shelves and a wide collection of tacky figurines instead. A truly horrid potted plant took up a corner and one of the drawers in his desk had somehow, magically, turned into a liquor cabinet. Laguna had certainly had nothing to do with _that_.

Foregoing the light with the confidence of one who has spent far too much time in one place, Laguna unceremoniously tossed the papers onto his desk and went straight to the wide window. It faced a large part of the city and in the gloom of nightfall he could see all the multicolored twinkling lights of his people.

Behind him was the near-silent sound of shifting clothing.

Old instincts kicking in, Laguna dropped to the ground and struck out with a knife he kept in the back of his wide belt. A soft curse broke the quiet and then there was a powerful grip on the back of his neck, another hand with incredible strength forcing him to drop the weapon.

"I'm not here to kill you," said the intruder. "I just want to ask a few questions."

"You ever thought about using a phone?"

"…No."

Laguna shifted slightly and the grip on the back of his neck tightened. He prudently held still.

"I need to talk to Squall Leonhart."

"What?"

"Leonhart."

"Yeah, I heard that, but…what?"

The stranger loosened his grip and Laguna was immediately swiping the knife off the floor and dancing out of reach. His assailant was much shorter than he would've guessed, with spiky hair that might've been yellow, judging from the dim light coming in through the window.

"Zell? What the hell are you doing?" And hey, Laguna was always good for a practical joke, but this? What the hell. But then he realized that Zell's voice wasn't nearly so low and flat, nor his body so still. "Wait, who are you?"

A slight pause, then, "Cloud Strife. I need to speak with Leonhart immediately, and you're the most obvious person who would know how to do that."

His brusque and stubborn manner faintly reminded Laguna of his son. "You seriously broke into the capitol for _this._"

"…Yes." A faint edge of what could've been embarrassment.

"…Right. I'm gonna turn on a light. You attack me, I attack back."

Laguna flipped the switch by the door, taking a moment to adjust to the sudden light. The intruder did indeed resemble Zell, but it was purely superficial – he'd never seen the martial artist look as pale and washed-out as this one. At least he didn't look insane, definitely not like an assassin or jilted lover (though Laguna had never seen any indication of his son being, ah, _that way_, but one never knew for _sure_, and Laguna had always tried to keep an open mind about these things. Hey, Squall could be into goats for all he knew, though the thought of someone like that doing anything even as mildly inappropriate as forgetting to zip up his pants made Laguna's brain break a little and _okay not thinking about this anymore_).

"What do you want with Squall?" Because Strife didn't seem like the kind of guy who did much small-talk. (So, taking presidents hostage, is this a hobby? I hear macramé is a little less traumatic.)

"It's about the last Sorceress," Strife said quietly, and now Laguna was all seriousness.

"What would you know about that?"

"She wasn't the last one. And she wasn't much more than a…puppet." He tripped a little on that last word. "I need to talk to Leonhart."

"Where'd you get this information?" Laguna demanded, because he was _Esthar's president _and shit like this should've been brought to his desk at the slightest whisper of a rumor.

"…Please. Let me talk to Leonhart."

One track mind. "Fine. Have a seat, I'll get him on the vid."

…

The monsters may have looked a little different, but their viciousness never changed. Vincent followed the hordes that seemed to be migrating from the Northern Crater, wondering why now, and why the Northern Crater. Between this and his awakening after so many years, it didn't seem like a coincidence.

At least the constant battling was warming the blood in cold veins and sharpening skills that had gone rather rusty. He had yet to come across any human settlements, which meant there wasn't any slaughtering of civilians, but also that he couldn't replace the clothes threatening to fall off at any moment. Yuffie would've broken a rib laughing.

At one point Vincent caught his reflection in a smooth stretch of ice and found an unchanged face staring back. CHAOS laughed behind his thoughts.

After a few days of travel with the monster hordes thinning out and wandering aimlessly, he discovered that Icicle no longer existed. It took crossing a narrow strait_ – _thankfully just wide enough to discourage the monsters from swimming_ – _in the hold of a fishing ship before the first signs of civilization appeared. _Welcome to Dollet, _a faded, waterlogged sign greeted him, though the place looked more like one of those fishing shanty-towns that tended to appear on the outskirts of coastal cities. There was a faint light shining in the coming twilight, and he slipped from the ship with no one any the wiser for his presence.

Vincent was very, very good at not being seen. He moved through the shadows towards the nearest ramshackle house and broke the lock on the back door with a claw, and by the time the moon rose he was back outside in worn trousers and a black long-sleeved shirt, both chosen for their warmth and ease of movement. In a moment of sentimentality he'd also filched a length of thick red cloth from a woman's sewing closet, and taken a knife to his ridiculously long hair so that it hit the middle of his back once more rather than being twisted round his bony knees.

Monsters had led him to civilization, and the smell of alcohol led him to the people. It was a stereotypical fishing tavern, rundown and dimly lit, reeking of fish and salt and unwashed laborers. For a moment he was back on the _Highwind_, hovering in the shadows behind Cid as the man smoked and swore out all the cryptic creepy Turks and ninja thieves and schizophrenic blonds of the world.

Running his gaze over the tavern, he saw no immediate threat, but still made sure his face was shadowed by his new cloak as he casually entered and seated himself at the bar near the door. He was close enough to listen to the conversation of a group of men, but there wasn't much more there than sexist commentary on loose women and how crappy this weather was for work. A positively ancient transistor radio on the counter behind the bar crackled grumpily.

" – _Estharian scientists claim,_" said a woman's plastic voice through the intermittent static. _"However, they caution the public that there's no proof of these new monsters, and if there are, they've assured that they will hire SeeD experts to contain and study the new species for future control. In other news, a woman in Timber has claimed to have given birth to Hyne's child – "_

_No proof indeed_, Vincent thought dryly.

"What you be wantin', buddy?" came a gruff loud voice, and the barkeep would've startled Vincent if he hadn't walked as heavily as a dragon.

"A pint of whatever's on tap," he said softly, knowing it'd look strange to sit in a tavern and not drink. Being the first time he'd spoken aloud since the Northern Crater, his voice was harsh and gravelly.

The man was covered in tattoos and enough sinewy muscle to bench press the Sister Ray, but his black-toothed grin was cheerful enough when he plunked down a greasy tankard in front of Vincent.

"_Reports are coming in from Dollet of an attack by unknown creatures on the people – a slaughter – "_

"How far is Dollet from here?" Vincent asked, but the barkeep just blinked at him.

"What d'you want to know that for?"

Vincent's claw hand lashed out and grabbed the front of the man's shirt, dragging him halfway over the bar and getting up in his face. "How far is Dollet?" he asked again quietly.

"A-about twenty miles west of 'ere," the barkeep stammered, terrified by a dark voice and demonic blood-red eyes.

In a streak of red and black Vincent disappeared without another word, leaving behind a tavern of fishermen that wondered if they'd just seen a devil.


	5. Chapter 5

**Word Count**: 2,763**  
Date**: 13 July 2010**  
Note**: It's also been so long since I've played FF8 that I may start getting its little details confused with FF7, and for that I apologize ahead of time.

Unbetaed.

* * *

**Imperfect Tense**_**  
Hades' Phoenix**_

**5.**

Thursday evening.

Life, Seifer decided, pretty much sucked ass. Abandonment at an orphanage, failed the SeeD exam _three times_, got seduced by an evil Sorceress wearing the face of his surrogate mother – and he really didn't want to examine the implications of _that_ too closely – had his ass kicked by one of the pretty-boys he used to bully, and now he couldn't tell right from left or remember what he had for breakfast.

Well, maybe the last was to be expected, since it wasn't long afterwards that a horde of monsters, _entirely out of the blue, _decided that Dollet would make an awesome slaughtering ground. He, Fujin, and Raijin stood on the front porch of their rented cottage and watched the approaching apocalypse. Because of the late hour, fortunately, there were few people out, and the monsters didn't seem interested in busting down doors or windows so much as just rampaging through the empty streets.

"Fuck my life," he muttered.

"IDIOT."

Seifer shot Fujin a sulky look before looking back down the road. The horde didn't even begin to approach the Lunar Cry in terms of sheer monstrous volume, but _damn _if it wasn't still intimidating as hell seeing a roiling mass of mutated flesh lit up in stark shadow by the streetlamps.

"Coulda been worse, yanno," said Raijin. "They might've been T-rexaurs."

Oh, the optimism of youth.

"Where's Leonhart when you need him?" Seifer sighed rhetorically as he hefted Hyperion and shot the nearest monster point-blank to the face. The thing squealed piercingly and twisted through the air, landing awkwardly on its side, but rather than stay dead it started to struggle back to its feet.

Seifer had quite clearly seen his bullet splatter skull and brain over the pavement.

"…FUCK."

"Holy Hyne, what the fuck _are _these things?" he snarled, leaping off the porch and ducking a swipe of claws that tried to take of his head. He heard Fujin and Raijin follow him (_they always did_) and he fell into the old pattern of _shootslashparrydodgehit_ that was so comforting in its familiarity. If he was no longer capable of daily life, well, at least he knew he could still kick some serious ass.

But even ass-kicking gunbladers get tired and eventually he slipped in spilled viscera, sending him to the ground just as a tentacle (seriously, what the _fuck_) lashed out over his head, and he was emptying a clip into what looked like the bastard child of malboro and grat when a set of brassy claws gripped his arm. Seifer was hauled upright so quickly that his head spun, and it took a moment to realize that the claws were at the end of a _human _limb.

"Did I mention my life sucks ass?"

"Can you still fight?" the stranger demanded harshly, and Seifer might not have been in his right mind but it was instinct to respond to such authority with a sneer.

"If you didn't have your fucking hands all over me," he snarled, and he was instantly released. The man just gave him a flat look from under long dark hair before unceremoniously raising an impressive-looking gun. He fired into the monsters with an accuracy that would make Kinneas green with envy.

Pissed off and confused, Seifer went back to what he did best and sliced a monster in two.

…

It took a will honed by centuries of patience to resist the bloodlust of the demons in his head. The smell of the dead beasts was thick and cloying in Vincent's sensitive nose, a sickly-sweet stench of blood and shredded meat with the underlying sting of mako, and it made the company in his head howl with maddened glee.

When the last of the monsters ended up in pieces on the ground, Vincent idly flicked the gore off his claws and holstered Death Penalty under his new cloak. A little ways off, the gunblader kicked at a corpse and muttered a string of heartfelt curses that would've done Highwind proud. Both he and the two others with him had fought with admirable skill that spoke of experience, although the woman was now limping from a wound in her lower leg. When the gunblader suddenly hissed and hunched over, hand going to his temple, Vincent's eyes narrowed.

"Oi, Seifer, you all right?" asked the larger man, putting a hand on the gunblader's shoulder in concern.

"I'm fine," this Seifer snapped before he straightened and fixed a baleful glare on Vincent. "Who the fuck are you? And what the fuck are these?"

_A stunningly diverse vocabulary. _Vincent raised a brow at him, deeply unimpressed by this bluster, and instead bent to examine one of the monsters, ignoring the large man's sound of disgust as he rolled the corpse over and prodded at one of its gaping wounds.

"You deaf, buddy?"

The blood that came away on his fingers was the typical purple of several monster species. Same thick viscosity, same stench, but when he rubbed his fingers together the blood developed the slightest of shimmers. Mako, or something very like it. Just as he'd started to suspect after crossing the strait and terrorizing the poor fishermen.

When he stood, Vincent felt every one of his years settle over his shoulders. He gave himself a moment to wonder if this was how Cloud had once felt. _Isn't it ironic, Hojo, that in trying to destroy what you hated most, you created the weapons that brought about your downfall._ Although it seemed that Jenova was just as difficult to kill as Turks and failed SOLDIER experiments, and while attributing this attack to Jenova was more than far-fetched, it _did _make a horrible sort of sense. The distinct mutations, the coordination of this attack – monsters never attacked in such a mixed horde unless there was an outside factor controlling them – not to mention the disturbing similarity of Seifer's little fit to a certain other blond kid.

Other explanations included someone having found any of her remaining cells, or another one of her kind.

"These monsters aren't natural," Vincent said softly. The gunblader opened his mouth, no doubt to make some smartassed comment, but then shut it again with a sharp click of teeth.

"WHO?" asked the woman, apparently unconcerned by the blood streaming down her leg.

"The Calamity of the Heavens." He went back to poking thoughtfully at a corpse.

Seifer looked ready to either argue or throw something, but then he hissed and once more grasped at his hair with one hand. The other tightened around the hilt of his weapon.

"We should get you inside, yanno," the large man muttered, slipping an arm around his shoulders while the woman ducked under his other side. Vincent followed at a distance as the three limped awkwardly past a number of dead monsters and several houses, in which people pressed their terrified and awed faces against the windows. _Should get a count of the dead_, Vincent noted automatically.

The three stumbled up the steps of a tiny cottage and fumbled their way inside, Seifer managing to throw a dark glare over the woman's head that threatened bodily harm if Vincent tried to get away. The Turk pushed the door closed as Seifer was wrestled, with much swearing and general verbal abuse and liberal soaking of clothes in gore, onto the sagging sofa. The woman sat beside him while the third of their party went in search of a medical kit.

"We'll try this again. Who the fuck are you and what the fuck were those?"

"My name is Vincent Valentine, and those monsters have been mutated into something stronger and faster than their natures intended." He saw no need to share his thoughts on mako or Jenova. Besides, he could be utterly wrong about all of this and the answer was simply a freak coincidence of nature. Stranger things had happened.

"WHY?" the woman demanded, and Vincent shrugged a shoulder.

"Great," the blond growled under his breath, "just when you thought things couldn't get more screwed up – and I swear to Hyne that if I don't stop hallucinating Leonhart standing over in that corner then my boot is saying hello to _someone's_ ass. Shut up, you're glaring too loudly, Princess."

The woman and the man that reappeared from the bathroom exchanged looks.

"I'm Raijin, and this is the Fujin," said Raijin as he kneeled in front of Fujin and took out a roll of bandages and a potion. He cast a glance at the gunblader scowling poisonously at a corner of the room. "Thanks, yanno. Normally Seifer wouldn't have had much of a problem with such weak monsters, but, uh, he hasn't been feeling too great lately."

Accepting gratitude tended to imply some sort of responsibility from one person to another, but Vincent just tilted his head in acknowledgement and didn't argue.

…

Seifer sat with his arms crossed and tried to remind himself that what he was seeing _wasn't real_.

Fujin's leg was bleeding and he needed to help her. To be fair, all three of them had sustained their share of scuffs and scrapes, but Leonhart was leaning against the far wall streaked with sweat and battle-filth with Lion Heart swinging loosely in one hand. The voice inside of him was saying _kill him, kill the SeeD – _

What crawled up Leonhart's ass and died to make him scowl so deeply? "Shut up, you're glaring too loudly, Princess."

Leonhart's pretty eyes narrowed even further and he shifted his stance, making his belts clink. Which didn't really help, because Seifer had once gotten to see exactly what was under all that leather and he knew the real thing smelled as much like gunpowder and weapon grease as this hallucination…

…but he was also standing _right there _and _oh, Ice Princess, seems you're fucking up in your old age. The Sorceress isn't dead, I felt her call her Knight, but it isn't just me she's after…_

If you didn't have more brawn than brains –

_Fuck off, Princess, this ain't my Hyne-damned fault. I know you're jealous of this prime piece of flesh, but please, try to contain yourself. Think of the children._

Lion Heart was rising in a double-handed swing that Seifer recognized immediately as the gesture that had nearly split his head in two –

_It was storming, wasn't it, and for a moment I thought you were part of it, Squall-the-squall_. Ha.

Lion Heart was coming towards him and Seifer couldn't allow him to win like he always, _always _did; Hyperion flashed outwards –

– then Raijin was pinning him down and Seifer watched Lion Heart rip through him, and the _once a Knight always a Knight _screamed, _You idiot, you motherfucking moron, did you think Leonhart wouldn't kill you, that cold son of a bitch, what were you thinking trying to save me, Rai?_

And why was Fujin standing there, doing nothing, looking as impassive as that bastard Leonhart save for the sadness in her eye? And who

_has the red eyes of a devil_

"Seifer," Raijin cried, who was still alive even though Lion Heart was sticking through his back like an overlarge toothpick, "Leonhart's in Garden, yanno, no one's there!"

Seifer was about to point out that everyone was apparently really fucking blind, except someone cast a spell and he couldn't do much of anything.

…

_The blackness slid along Squall's flesh, sucking away the warmth and life, violating his body and his mind until he wasn't sure where he ended and __**it **__began. A poison-green tendril glowed in the darkness, wrapped itself around his heart, and it felt like drowning._

_Through the pain and the terror he dimly recognized a person, a man, with narrow feline eyes as green as the poison and hair as pale as Shiva's snow. _

"_Mother will tear you apart."_

Squall woke up and promptly tumbled off the bed in a heap of flailing limbs and sweat-soaked sheets. He scuttled backwards to press his back against the wall, wrapping his arms around his knees with his chest heaving.

After long minutes of his harsh breathing sounding unnaturally loud in the silence of his quarters, Squall closed his eyes and let his head thump back against the wall. The ghostly sensation of Shiva's arms slid around his waist, giving him the comfort of the cold in the face of dreams that were starting to seem a little too real. Although he'd never heard Rinoa's voice sounding so inhumanly _furious_.

_Get a grip, Leonhart_, he sneered at himself.

He must have sat there for a good hour before the vid-phone started beeping, and the gun he kept under his pillow was in his hand and trained on the damn machine before he realized what it was. As Shiva's presence melted away, he stiffly managed to get to his feet and untangle himself from the sheet before falling heavily into his desk chair, setting the pistol to the side of the phone.

"Leonhart," he snapped. When he saw his father's face, he resisted the urge to go ahead and shoot.

"…_Squall? Did I, uh, interrupt something?"_

Bemused, he glanced down at himself, belatedly realizing that he was wearing nothing but sleeping boxers and the bed behind him was suspiciously messed up. He scowled at the screen and was vindictively satisfied when Laguna choked on a swallow and said, _"Ah, right. Well, I have someone who wants to speak with you. He even broke into the capitol to do so, and seriously, who does that?"_

_Desperate people_. "Fine."

Laguna stepped aside. Squall would later deny that his jaw dropped when Cloud Strife sat down.

…

Cloud had to admit that he was amused when the normally apathetic Squall looked absolutely floored.

"Leonhart."

"…Strife."

He was justifiably incredulous. The kid didn't seem like the type prone to much imagination, Cloud thought dryly, no doubt he'd convinced himself that he'd just dreamed up the whole Lifestream thing. But then the blond's gaze sharpened, noticing the sweat on Squall's brow, the shadows under his eyes, and the way he was tapping a handgun in an unsettled tic.

"Listen," Cloud started quietly, "Ultimecia wasn't the last Sorceress."

Suddenly the kid was Commander Leonhart, all business and no hesitation. "Explain."

"Years ago an alien called Jenova came to the Planet. She was defeated when she tried to destroy the world, but her…essence infiltrated the Lifestream. As far as I can tell, she's the one that's been creating these Sorceresses. Not consciously, more like – a virus, infecting them and still trying to destroy the Planet."

"Sorceresses were created by Hyne," Leonhart said sharply, "not…space aliens."

Well, gee, when it was put like that… "Does it really matter? Either way, there's another one."

"And what's _your _relation with this Jenova?"

"I…was there, when she tried to kill everything."

Laguna made a sound of incredulity behind him, but Leonhart just looked thoughtful, if still disbelieving of the whole story. "Why now?"

Cloud hesitated, having seriously not considered that. The Cetra hadn't exactly been very forthcoming (_they never were, let their favorite weapon wallow in guilt and misery for a few centuries and suddenly he'll be easier to mold into what they really want, but don't think like that, it'll lead to madness_).

"Maybe it has something to do with whatever Ultimecia did. I don't know." The fact that Leonhart didn't seem to be having an issue with the inconsistencies of timelines suggested it wasn't a new idea to him.

…Huh.

"Laguna," Leonhart said suddenly, making the president jump, "I'll be sending the _Ragnarok_ as soon as possible to pick up Strife."

The vid-screen went abruptly dark. Laguna sighed gustily.

"I guess hoping Squall was in bed with someone was too much."

Cloud stared at him and the man flushed. "I mean, he's just so closed off from everyone, the only time he ever reacts is when he's confronted with someone he thinks is being less than efficient – "

_("Don't worry about it, Cloud, if he gets mad, it means he likes you. Usually he just ignores the rest of the world.")_

_("I didn't mean to anger him…")_

_("Hey, we've still got that mission to Nibelheim, right? You can make it up to him then.")_

The winters in Nibelheim had always been particularly cold.


	6. Chapter 6

**Word Count**: 2,160**  
Date**: 6 December 2010

* * *

**Imperfect Tense**_**  
Hades' Phoenix**_

**6.**

Friday morning.

The _Ragnarok _was a monstrous construct of sharp angles and blood-red paint, looking more like a stationary predator than an airship. Quistis could see why Selphie might be accused of sexual harassment every time she was in the pilot's seat. The girl was currently in said seat, vibrating with energy, hands hovering over the controls impatiently and shooting Quistis looks that demanded satisfaction. That it was four in the morning didn't seem to bother her.

"Where's Squall?" she whined, twisting around in her seat to look high and low in the passenger area as though the boy was hiding in the ventilation shaft. Irvine shrugged, not bothering to look up from under his hat, and Zell had already fallen back to asleep.

"He's talking with the hangar manager," Quistis managed through a yawn. "Wants to make sure _Ragnarok's _up for a flight to Esthar."

"More like scaring the shit out of people trying to do their jobs," Selphie muttered, and Quistis coughed to hide her laugh.

Finally the ship gave a familiar light jerk as the main hydraulic door closed. Squall appeared a few minutes later, fully dressed and wide awake enough to put his subordinates to shame. Quistis was wondering for the millionth time exactly _why _he'd appeared at their respective quarters at _three-thirty in the morning, _with orders to prepare for a trip to Esthar, when he barked, "Set a course for the airbase."

Selphie grinned, shot off a mocking salute, and took to the controls with a rather unsettling cackle of glee. As soon as Squall took a seat on one of the benches, Quistis was at his side opposite a snoring Zell. "So, you going to tell us why we're going halfway across the world before sunrise?"

When Squall didn't reply she sighed and leaned back against the wall. "We're all worried about you, you know." She glanced at him from the corners of her eyes. "You've been harsher than usual. Selphie thinks it's because of Rinoa leaving, but that's not it, is it? You've been like this since the Time Compression."

He stared at the far wall and imitated a rock with impressive talent.

"Your secretary says you're usually there before her in the morning and still there when she leaves. She says she once found you asleep on your desk."

His brows furrowed, and for someone like Squall he might as well have cursed up a blue streak. Unfortunately for him the airship didn't provide much opportunity for him to slip away and hide. "I still sleep in my quarters. I still eat."

"The bare minimum, apparently."

His scowl deepened.

"We've all tried not to push you, Squall, but honestly, I'm getting tired of watching you run yourself into the ground. You might've saved the world, but you're only human."

"Rinoa's leaving was a mutual agreement," he surprisingly admitted, albeit without much emotion. Quistis made sure that she didn't lean towards him or touch him, which would shut him up as fast as a bear trap.

"But it still hurt, didn't it? Squall, that's natural. You get hurt, you move on."

He shot her an irritated look suspiciously like _thank you for that condescending observation. _"I've been having dreams," he said abruptly. "About being called by Rinoa, as a Sorceress. We're going to go pick up someone who might be able to help."

And with the way Squall tended to drop these bombs on people, thank Hyne that he wasn't usually needed during delicate diplomacy missions. "Wait, _what?_"

"I'm Rinoa's Knight," he said slowly, "and she's calling me."

"…Oh. Well. That. Doesn't sound good." She winced at her own inanity. Squall didn't bother to respond, just stared at the far wall with his arms crossed and obviously sunk deep into his thoughts. Irvine had slumped farther in his seat, his hat over his face, and Zell sprawled across the bench with a leg tossed haphazardly over the cowboy's lap.

_Isn't this going to be fun._

The sun was starting to creep in through the small windows when Selphie suddenly sang, "We're here!"

Zell awoke with a snort and tumbled off the bench while Irvine twitched. Quistis snickered. Squall stood up and braced himself against the wall as Selphie went on, "_Hey_, Esthar, the sun's hardly risen and the new day's already starting! Get up off your lazy asses and let us down, I'm _starving_. Oh, Sir Laguna! How's it going being president?"

Tinny laughter from the radio buoyed Selphie's cheerfulness. _"You wouldn't _believe_ the paperwork. I swear I wake up at night scrawling my signature all over the walls, and Kiros never lets me drink anymore after that dinner with this ambassador and I _swear_ it wasn't my fault_."

Selphie was grinning. "Man, you should've seen Squally the one time we got some booze into him – "

Squall gently but firmly pushed Selphie to one side. "Is Strife with you?"

"_Oh, uh, yes, Squall, but – "_

Squall switched channels. "_Ragnarok _to airbase, Balamb SeeD Commander Squall Leonhart requesting permission to land for state business."

"_Airbase to _Ragnarok_, permission granted_," the captain replied, rattling off coordinates.

"That was rude," Selphie pouted, but she obediently started preparing the ship for landing. He just stared out the windshield and didn't seem to hear her.

…

The reflection of sunlight flashed off the underbelly of the airship as Laguna shifted from foot to foot impatiently.

"They'll be here," Kiros told him dryly, tranquil as a mountain glen, damn him.

"I _know_, but this is the kind of thing I want to get over with," he muttered. His eyes slid towards Cloud standing several feet away, enormous sword protruding over his shoulder and looking more like a statue than a living person as he stared up at the _Ragnarok_.

"I've never heard Squall or the others speak of this Strife," Kiros murmured, following Laguna's line of sight. "Have you asked your son about him?"

Laguna snorted. It was a surprisingly bitter sound. "Even if I had, I probably would've just gotten a blank stare." He hadn't even heard about the breakup with Rinoa until Selphie let it slip a few days ago. When he asked if Squall was talking to anyone about it, the girl gave him a strange look and asked if T-rexaurs had learned to fly yet.

Laguna felt the effect of the ship's engines vibrating in his chest as gales of dusty wind forced him to take several steps back. It shuddered as it touched down and taxied towards the hangar, and when the engines died the hangar assistants flew into action. Laguna stuck a finger in his ear and wiggled it, wincing at the sudden silence.

"How was the flight?" he called out as Squall exited the ship, closely followed by the other SeeDs.

"It was fine, thank you, Laguna," Quistis said, suppressing a yawn. Irvine and Zell were slouching along while Selphie smiled at Laguna with all the cheeriness of her yellow chocobo barrettes.

Squall gave Laguna and Kiros a nod of acknowledgement before heading straight for Strife.

Now, watching Leonhart approach instigating a number of mental loops in Cloud's mind. One part was tempted to grin rakishly and crack a joke; another wanted to stand tall and school his face into perfect cool; a third, the oldest, part would rather be curled in the corner than forced to meet new people. Ultimately he chose to just stand there and wait and pretend not to notice that the younger commander was also taller.

"Strife," said Leonhart coolly.

"Leonhart," Cloud replied flatly. Somewhere behind Leonhart the girl in the yellow dress managed to actually guffaw with laughter. Cloud wasn't sure what was so funny.

…

_Seifer walked a barren plain that had no sound, smell, or sensation. His hands and feet bled and he thought blood might also be spilling over his lips, down his chin. Overhead the sky was the black and blue of a bruise, faintly grey-green like dead flesh, somehow twisting and wriggling as though there were maggots on the other side. It was the end of the world and the end of time and there was nothing but an unending, unbroken horizon on all sides._

_When he realized he wasn't alone, he whipped around, reaching for a gunblade he wasn't carrying and snarling, "Who the fuck are you?" His voice came out tired and thin._

_The man smiled bitterly. "Would you speak to a god like that, boy?"_

"_I'll speak like that whenever the fuck I want," he replied automatically, but the man just arched a brow._

"_Mother will kill you."_

"_The _hell_'re you talking about?" Seifer snarled, the sudden weight of Hyperion in his hand distracting him, letting him lash out instinctively, but the gunblade was caught by another sword with a shriek and a shower of sparks. The man's sword was longer than either of them was tall, long and razor-sharp and made for the kind of slashing that left opponents in little pieces._

_What was strange, though, even in the midst of all this decay and barrenness, was that the man's expression was blank. Expressionless. He wasn't looking at Seifer so much as through him, and although Seifer was straining and sweating against the lock of their blades the man hardly appeared to notice. He said mildly, "Tell Cloud that I will not remain a memory."_

_Behind the man's shoulder flexed a single dark wing, the feathers flaring out and obscuring the rotten sky, but then the man shoved him back and his sword flickered out, bit deeply into his shoulder – _

– and there was someone holding him down against a cushion, but wasn't Raijin supposed to be dead?

Seifer struggled until Raijin released him and he sat up defensively against the armrest of the sofa, not immediately realizing that the growl he was hearing came from his own throat.

"SEIFER?"

_Holy shit, you sad fucker, you really are going insane_. There were bruises already beginning to form across Raijin's bare arms. "What the hell?" he croaked.

"Uh, Seifer, you're bleeding, yanno?"

Seifer stared at him blankly until he recognized there was pain searing through his shoulder, and then he flinched, hissing. A gash had opened itself in the flesh, just below the clavicle and a scant few centimeters from the joint itself, and was too obviously from a blade. Blood was dripping heavily down his arm and the front of his sleeveless wife-beater.

"Whoa," said Raijin eloquently.

"That's me, the Human fucking Wonder," Seifer muttered, still sounding like his throat was smoked out. A shadow near the door resolved itself into that new guy…Valentine? Some name that belonged in a porno, anyway, and Valentine was giving him the kind of dissecting stare that Quistis had been so damn good at.

"What did you see?" the guy asked, and if Seifer ever again felt strong enough to at least take on a five-year-old kid and win, he might mention that the porn industry would love to have that voice.

"Your momma. Forgot to call and tell her I'd be late tonight."

"SEIFER."

Seifer scowled. "It was just a Hyne-damned dream," he muttered, tasting the lie. The wound in his shoulder throbbed as Raijin grabbed a medical kit sitting by Fujin's freshly-wrapped leg and sat on the edge of the sofa. It had felt more like those hallucinations he'd been having since Ultimecia's death, or maybe memories, whatever, he didn't have any fucking clue what was going on in his own head anymore.

"That was no dream," said Valentine, and Seifer snapped, "Thank you, Captain Obvious. Who let the vampire in the house anyway?"

"What kind of sword did this?" Raijin asked with a note that almost sounded like awe as he wiped away the blood.

"Fucker's blade must've been six, seven feet long."

Valentine moved so quickly that none of the other three had a chance to react before he was leaning over Seifer, claw clamped around his unwounded shoulder. "What did he say?"

"Hey!" cried Raijin, getting ready for some serious manhandling, and Fujin was struggling for the knife in her boot when Seifer barked, "Calm down!"

Meeting Valentine's eyes, he said, "Back the fuck off and I'll tell you," and waited until the guy had taken a few steps away. "He didn't give me a name, just said his mother would kill me and to tell Cloud, or _a _cloud, I don't know, that he wasn't gonna stay a memory."

It obviously meant something to Valentine, who withdrew towards the shadows near the door again in brooding silence.

"Yo, you maybe wanna share with the class? Explain why I'm sittin' here with a fucking _hole _in my shoulder?" Seifer asked testily, but from ancient history with Squall he recognized that silence as one that would last as long as the brooder damn well pleased.

"Fuck my life," he grumbled as Raijin, still casting wary looks at Valentine, started wrapping him in gauze.


	7. Chapter 7

**Word Count**: 1,600**  
Date**: 7 December 2010

* * *

**Imperfect Tense**_**  
Hades' Phoenix**_

**7.**

"Squally, we totally need to get some of these for Garden."

Selphie was happily spinning around in one of the plush chairs in the conference room, waiting for everyone else to take their own seats around the elliptical table. Squall ignored her in favor of leaning forward slightly and fixing his stare on Strife, directly across the table.

"You gonna tell us what this is about now?" Zell yawned, the sunlight coming through a high window and lighting up his hair making him look like a disgruntled chocobo. Selphie started to reach out to pat him on the head, but Quistis smacked her hand away.

"Tell them what you told me," said Squall.

Strife's eyes narrowed, but he repeated, almost word for word, what he'd told Squall the night before over the vid-phone.

"Hold on. An alien?" repeated Zell.

"Yes," replied Strife.

"Really?"

Strife gave him a flat look.

"Right. Aliens are a 'go.'" When Squall put his head in his hands, Zell asked, "What?"

Kiros, sitting beside Laguna at one of the narrow curves of the tables, hummed thoughtfully. "If the Lifestream is the source of life for everything, then why are only the Sorceresses affected?"

"It'd be hard to say," said Quistis. "We still don't actually know _how _someone becomes a Sorceress, stories about Hyne aside."

"Wait," Selphie broke in suddenly, "Cloud, if you were there when Jenova was last time, how old _are _you?"

Strife blinked. "I…don't know."

"Did you ever have a dinosaur for a pet?"

What Strife was actually going to say when he opened his mouth no one would ever know, since Quistis had snapped around in Squall's direction and frowned. "You once asked me if I'd ever heard of the Lifestream. If we're just meeting Strife today, how did _you _know about it?"

Squall ran a hand through his hair irritably. "I told you that I've been having dreams. They…included the Lifestream."

"And Strife was there?" Irvine asked mildly. Squall nodded once.

"The Lifestream is how you've been kept alive all these years," Quistis concluded shrewdly, shooting a look at Strife and getting another nod in return.

"So who _are _you, exactly?" Laguna demanded, exasperated. "You come out of nowhere talking about Sorceresses and trying to take me hostage – "

Strife shifted in his seat. "We're…no, _I _am – _was a_ mercenary."

Squall's eyes narrowed at the apparent confusion of pronouns and verb tenses and thought that perhaps they'd need to keep an especially close eye on him. Unpredictable people were the most dangerous, and losing their main source of information to a Sorceress' seduction would probably be a bad thing. (In the back of his mind, Shiva sent small, supportive wisps of cold curling through his thoughts.)

On the other side of the table in the red corner, Cloud was wishing he was anywhere else. Should've seen the conferences Sephiroth was forced attend, Zack pointed out, but at least he had the Masamune. A hand on that hilt and Heidegger would shut the fuck up _real _fast.

"So where's this Sorceress?" asked the cowboy, lounging like a lazy housecat. "Doesn't Esthar monitor that kind of thing?"

"If we could find Sorceresses so easily, we'd know immediately anytime one of them was born," Laguna admitted. "But usually they don't even show until adolescence."

Quistis sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose, pushing her glasses askew. "So she could be anywhere right now."

"We do know _one _Sorceress," Tilmitt-call-me-Selphie-you-cutie interjected, sounding uncharacteristically timid as she glanced at their commander. Leonhart didn't react.

"You really think Rinoa would do anything, though?" Zell was frowning doubtfully. "Wouldn't she come to us if something was wrong?"

"Look at Edea," Quistis said softy, and the rest of the SeeDs went quiet.

Cloud broke in, "Jenova doesn't require a willing host. Though it helps."

Leonhart looked skeptical. "What's Jenova after?"

_("Mother is the rightful ruler of this Planet.")_

"Domination. Cleansing the Planet of humanity."

_("I will be a god.")_

"As soon as we return to Garden, we'll need to track down Rinoa and Seifer."

"Seifer?" Zell blinked.

"He was a Knight as well."

"What does being a Knight have to do with any of this, though?"

_("Don't you two ever talk, Cloud? Like, _outside _the bedroom?")_

_("I'm worried about you, Spike. Sephiroth's not exactly the most…sensitive of people, and you're – no, Cloud, I'm not calling you worthless, but you're practically still a _kid _and – please, don't look at me like that.")_

"If he was controlled by Ultimecia once – "

Cloud, who'd been staring out the window behind Zell, twitched and glanced at the commander. "Controlled how?"

"Sorceresses have Knights," Quistis explained. "Like their general or right-hand man. He isn't nearly as powerful, but he can still draw on her power."

Cloud stared at her and felt like Zack had just landed a blow in his stomach during a training session. _Meteor Crisis. Reunion_.

"You okay, Cloudy?" said Selphie, but Cloud ignored her, demanded, "How do these men become Knights?" and didn't miss the way everyone looked at Leonhart.

"We don't know." His voice was completely flat. "I don't remember how I became a Knight."

"But it explains why you were able to get into the Lifestream."

Something in his voice must've been strange enough to tip off Quistis. "You all right, Cloud?"

"Jenova had…a Knight," he muttered, glancing down and letting his hair fall over his eyes. "The general of the largest army in the world. He nearly destroyed it, and he had a piece of her inside him. If what you're saying about Knights is true then you're just as much of a liability as this Rinoa and Seifer, Leonhart."

Leonhart's eyes narrowed and, yes, there was the killer hiding behind a pretty face. Laguna and the SeeDs looked distinctly unhappy, but Cloud didn't think they'd noticed the tendrils of frost winding from under Leonhart's gloved hands and down the armrests of his chair.

Well. _That _wasn't normal.

"What about you?" the commander returned. Cloud smiled humorlessly, already seeing in the kid that very human fear of losing control. It would be a cruel fate for him to defeat a Sorceress and her Knight once only to turn around and take one of those places himself, strung along a like a puppet and too drunk on power to see the strings. Better to die as yourself than as a monster.

"Don't worry, Leonhart. When the time comes, I won't hesitate."

He knew the commander would understand what he meant.

…

Rinoa stared into the tiny mirror over the bathroom sink and thought, _I'm going insane. Oh Hyne, Squall, help me, there's something wrong and I think I'm losing it_.

Someone knocked on her apartment door and called, "Rinoa, you in there? Are you okay? We were all worried, you never showed up at the site yesterday…"

It was the girl with whom she'd had lunch the other day, sweet Amanda with a cat and a parakeet and a dream of being a veterinarian someday. Her voice, muffled by the door, made the _sickness _under Rinoa's skin shiver.

"Go away!" Rinoa managed around the lump in her throat.

"What's wrong? Are you sick?"

"_Go away!_"

Then there was silence and she was alone. She'd skipped work because now whenever she saw someone she could picture their eyes exploding in their sockets, how easy it'd be, how defenseless their minds really were. Last night a bird had landed on her windowsill and an instant later it was a smear of blood and feathers on the wood.

Her reflection's eyes were bloodshot, silky hair tangled in a two-day-old braid, the salty grime of tears left on her cheeks. She looked like shit and felt like hell.

_**Why waste divine power on the unworthy?**_

It'd started with dreams but now she was hearing a voice, _that voice_, all the time and Hyne, gods, she really was going insane.

_You can't judge anyone's life as 'unworthy,' _she argued.

_**The weak are meant to bow to the strong, to love them, to follow their will. It is the natural order.**_

Rinoa was unconsciously tipping closer to the mirror and she saw _Squall on the floor, unmoving, blood spattered over his bone-white face, eyes half-lidded and staring – _

She jerked back with a cry, knocking her elbow against the porcelain, not closing her eyes fast enough to miss the poisonous green irises in her own eyes. SeeD was meant to control Sorceresses, she remembered, and she stumbled out of the bathroom, hitting her shoulder on the doorjamb hard enough that she was going to have a magnificent bruise there later. The vid-phone on the kitchen counter nearly fell out of her fumbling hands. No one answered the private lines of Squall, Quistis, Zell, or Selphie, and she prayed that the messages she left would be somewhat coherent.

_**They abandoned you. Take your vengeance.**_

_They're mercenaries, I know now that I never would've been able to live like that anyway_, but the voice didn't like that and the headache she'd had since her episode at the construction site flared into blinding agony. She fell on her knees and moaned.

_**It'll be worse if you fight, child.**_

…

"So this Sephiroth guy was taken over by a space alien named Jenova and tried to destroy the world, yanno?"

"Yes," said Vincent. It wasn't their fault if they didn't know the full extent of the tragedy and pain and madness caused by corporations, sadists, and men too broken to want anything other than death.

Seifer snorted, flopped back against the sofa cushions with a wince when he jostled his shoulder. "And you think this bitch is the reason why these monsters are so hard to kill."

"Yes."

"And Sephiroth is now in my head." Vincent just gave him a look. "So what's this 'cloud' he was talking about?"

Figuring the dead were best left to the past, Vincent shrugged silently.

"STAY?"

"Wait, what? Fu, what the hell?"

"Maybe she's right," Raijin argued. "He knows more than we do, anyway, yanno?"

"Yeah, whatever," and if he was going to start talking like Squall fucking Leonhart, he really was losing it.


	8. Chapter 8

**Word Count**: 2,700  
**Date**: 11 December 2010

* * *

**Imperfect Tense**_**  
Hades' Phoenix**_

**8.**_**  
**_

Friday.

Cloud leaned against the metal wall of the _Ragnarok's _interior and stared out the small window, watching the shadow of the ship flicker over the rolling of the ocean below. He'd crossed his arms out of habit, though the nausea in his belly wasn't entirely due to motion sickness.

_(He was crouched in the truck-bed in a miserable hiddle, stomach twisting and jumping like the stones under the vehicle's tires. Zack was speaking in an undertone with the general, glanced at Cloud with a sympathetic half-smile, but Cloud was too – )_

"Pretty, huh?"

Cloud twitched when he realized Selphie had sneakily sidled up, and his stomach protested when he wondered…if she was the pilot but was standing with him…

"Don't worry, Cloudy, this baby's on autopilot and made this trip loads of times," she winked, leaning her elbows on the porthole sill and looking out. "You know, we grew up by the ocean," she went on unprompted, and though he hadn't asked to listen to her life story the nostalgia in her voice sent a pang of envy through Cloud's homeless heart. "When Matron went to bed we'd all sneak out to the lighthouse and tell ghost stories. Seifer was the best at it, of course, used to make Zell cry. Never managed to scare Squall, though. They usually just ended up beating the shit outta each other." She giggled. "Did you have anything like that?"

Cloud fixed his eyes on the ship's rippling shadow. "I don't remember."

Selphie gave him an uncomfortably piercing look, but then leaned forward to press her nose against the window and leave prints that would no doubt irritate Quistis later. "If you're right about the Knights, then I'm afraid for Squally. I mean, he's an asshole sometimes, but he's _our _asshole, and don't you dare think too hard on that mental image."

Too late, quipped Zack.

"Same with Seifer, even after he ran off with Ultimecia. I don't think Squall ever really forgave him for leaving like that."

_(The glass was cold against his overheated skin. Felt like snow and it was so fucking cold but he was burning up, body wracked with tremors and he thought he could hear Zack, faint and garbled by the thick glass and thicker mako. His world had narrowed down to sensation, like an animal, but there was a mantra in his head like the sound of a god and wasn't that ironic, _whywhywhy Sephiroth _why – )_

_Forgiveness _for that kind of leaving, who could possibly ask for it, and Cloud's fingers dug into his upper arms. Selphie was watching him sidelong, nose still smooshed against the window, and apparently she was capable of the same still intensity as any other mercenary.

"I've only known you for like a couple hours, but you're cute and your sword is kick-ass. If Squall or Seifer do end up, like, going all doom on us – "

"I don't make promises," Cloud told her coldly.

Before Selphie could respond or he could leave, Quistis and Leonhart, who'd been clustered with the others near the cockpit door, appeared beside them. Now that he knew about the commander's Knighthood, Cloud could taste that unnatural taint to his presence even more strongly. Leonhart handed him a thick dossier without preamble. "What do you know about this?"

Cloud flipped through the papers, recognizing them as reports on monster statistics.

"This came from the Estharian scientists up near Dollet," Quistis said, not that that really meant anything to him. "They think these monsters are either an unusually evolved form of a currently known species or new ones altogether. We want to know if this is a coincidence or if it's related to Jenova."

_No such thing as coincidence_, he mused. A number caught his eye and he paused, brow furrowing, looking more closely at the data and blurred photos. So familiar.

"Oh, fuck," he groaned. "These have the Jenova factor, or whatever you want to call it. She's like a self-aware virus that can rewrite the genetics of a host and force mutations." He'd seen some of Hojo's other experiments, both for himself and through Zack's memories – twisted, mutilated things straight of a nightmare, made of flesh and metal and torture. Sephiroth may have been the logical genius of him, Zack, and Cloud but Cloud had never been stupid, and Hojo had always taken a sort of perverse pleasure in explaining what he was doing to his specimens.

"What happens?" Quistis asked.

"The host's genotype and, typically, phenotype are altered. Brain activity changes, endocrine system heightened, reaction time shortened. Increased muscle mass, denser bone structure." Of all the people to start channeling, Hojo probably wasn't the best. "The problem is the inevitable insanity."

Both Selphie and Quistis scrunched their faces with disgust, but Leonhart was staring at him with those piercing slate-grey eyes. Cloud snapped the dossier closed and handed it back to the commander, refusing to look away. "Basically, they turn into mean fuckers."

...

Before Selphie could drag off Cloud when the _Ragnarok _landed at Garden, Squall pulled her aside. "Keep an eye on him. If he says anything strange, does anything suspicious, or demonstrates unusual interest in something, I want to know."

"Yessir," she replied seriously, knowing she was dealing with the SeeD commander at the moment. "You don't trust him." Then she smiled and put her hands behind her head, Strange Vision swinging lazily from her grip. "He strikes me as the kind of guy you can trust with your life but not the truth. And he's _really _cute. Even if he had dinosaurs as pets."

Squall gave her flat look and she cackled as she threw a sloppy salute and skipped back to Cloud. Sighing, Squall slipped past the hangar maintenance crew and into the cool hallways of the school, heading towards his office and ignoring the mix of salutes and awed expressions from the students.

Xu was sitting behind his desk when he entered, nose buried in paperwork. She stood with a practiced salute and a tight smile. "Commander."

"Headmistress."

"We've gotten more reports of those monster sightings up north," she told him, "and more recruit applications. Galbadia's sent another request for war reparations, which of course will be denied." The presumptuousness would've irritated him if it'd been anyone other than Xu. A blinking red light on his vid-phone distracted him for a moment.

"Thank you, Xu. Myself and the SeeDs that accompanied me this morning will be leaving again tomorrow at oh-eight-hundred for an unknown amount of time. If you agree, I would like you to act as honorary commander until my return. I'll leave details. Is that acceptable?"

"Yes, sir." She bowed slightly, and left, and why couldn't the rest of the world operate with such efficiency?

Squall sat in his leather chair with an unwitting sigh. He took a moment to lean his elbows on his desk and run his fingers in circles over his temples before smacking the button for his personal line.

"_You have one new message._"

Rinoa's face suddenly appeared on the vid-phone and dear Hyne she looked horrible. Her hair was a rat's nest and her face was drawn tight and pale with tension.

"_Squall, I need your help,"_ she pleaded, her voice practically a croak. "_I can't – I can't control my spells and I think if I go outside I'll hurt someone. Squall, it feels like there's something, something in my _head_, I don't know, I don't think it's from Ultimecia or Adel. It feels too old and it. It's."_ She was rambling and holding back the hysteria by a thread, and when she hung up Squall was pathetically grateful for the cold that Shiva bled through his suddenly numbed body.

It'd hurt, of course it'd hurt, to open up even a little to someone and have it turned back on him later, even if the break had been better for both him and Rinoa in the long run. The logic was sound but a bitter pill to swallow. Failure as a person and now failure as a Knight, whatever that meant, but that had always been Seifer's thing, not his. And thinking about Seifer wasn't exactly helping, Hyne, and it looked like Strife's predictions about Jenova and Rinoa were already coming true.

Shiva crooned at him.

Squall pressed the button for the intercom that ran through the entire Garden. "All personnel just returned from Esthar are to report to the Commander's office immediately," he said calmly, and folded a hand reassuringly over Lion Heart's hilt.

The door to his office opened, but it was just his secretary, opening her mouth to say something. She thought better of it when she saw his expression and promptly backed out with a shiver.

…

When the _Ragnarok_ had approached Balamb Garden, Cloud felt like he'd been glued to the porthole. Zell had spent part of the trip explaining the purpose of SeeD and its Gardens, which had segued into the battle against Ultimecia, but somehow Zell's descriptions just didn't do justice to the reality.

The Garden was easily the most beautiful structure he'd ever seen. It was made of glass and dreams welded together with steel and technology, as bright in the sunlight as the Temple of the Ancients, as rich in color as the mako in Sephiroth and Zack's eyes. "Gods," he breathed.

The ship landed and Selphie promptly elected herself to be Cloud's tour guide. Leonhart disappeared before the engines had fully stopped, Quistis and Irvine following soon after, but Zell decided to stick with him and Selphie and pretend he didn't have any responsibilities to worry about. Cloud trailed after them as they wandered through the vaulted halls and labyrinthine corridors, chattering happily and occasionally throwing a line back at him. He wondered what it would've been like to train here and not in ShinRa, industrial oppressiveness replaced by open air and space, his hair and clothes and choice of weapon almost entirely unremarkable to mercenaries being commanded by a teenager in leather.

Selphie and Zell's conversation focused around the mostly safe topics of curricula and weaponry and how goddamn annoying it was having to fill out reports with the armory any time they so much as _looked. _When they passed the Training Room, they pointed it out with a significant glance to Ultima's wide hilt peeking over his shoulder.

"You guys have got it all wrong, man," Zell declared, fisting his hands and twisting around so that he could still talk to them while walking backwards. "Weapons are _cheating_. Anyone can swing a blade and lop off a limb, but it takes _real _talent to wield the _body_."

Selphie giggled. "I think Irvine's got both areas covered," and she laughed harder when Zell appeared distinctly uncomfortable. Even Cloud managed a smile.

"Well, what do we have here?" he cried pointedly, hurrying towards what looked, smelled, and sounded like a cafeteria. Those things were too unique to be faked. "I do believe it's hotdog day!"

"I want pickles!" shrieked Selphie, and Cloud was suddenly being dragged into a crowd of students and questionable foodstuffs.

_(A long line of hungry troopers, an elbow to the kidney, the ground rushing up to meet him just before a strong hand caught his arm. His lunch tray had already tumbled from his hands. "Hey, kiddo, you all right? Bah, of course you are. Now pick yourself up and go kick that bastard's ass for shoving you. Never gonna get stronger if you don't fight back.")_

The blond was pulling away from Selphie's surprisingly firm grasp when the intercom crackled.

"_All personnel just returned from Esthar are to report to the Commander's office immediately."_

Leonhart sounded as cold as usual, but Selphie and Zell both looked worried. "Something's wrong," Zell muttered, hotdogs forgotten.

Their path to the commander's office was painfully silent. They joined up with Quistis and Irvine on the way, but when Selphie asked what was going on Quistis just shook her head.

_Jenova?_

The office was unusually cold. Leonhart was standing behind his desk, facing the door with his hands at his sides, and if he'd appeared standoffish before he might as well have been a marble statue now. "Squall? What is it?" Zell asked worriedly after closing the door behind them all, but Quistis spoke first with a slightly tremulous voice.

"You've seen her too, then?"

Squall nodded once, sharply, and turned the vid-phone on his desk around so that the others could see its screen. He pressed a small red button.

"_Squall, help me…_"

The heart-shaped face and thick dark hair faintly reminded Cloud of Tifa. _Don't think about that_.

"_Squall, it feels like there's something, something in my _head_, I don't know, I don't think it's from Ultimecia or Adel. It feels too old and it. It's."_

"Well?" Leonhart asked coldly. Cloud shrugged a little under the weight of their collective attention (_too much_).

"If she's the Sorceress you were talking about, then yes, it's probably Jenova." He left out the part where he knew exactly what she was going through.

"_Fuck," _Zell swore loudly.

"Now what?" asked Quistis.

"This call came from Galbadia three hours ago. We need to bring her in immediately." _Alive or dead_ was left unspoken.

"How're we going to find her?" Irvine asked.

"I have an idea where she is," Selphie volunteered, face stony. "We've been trading letters. She's at one of the reconstruction sites, but I'd have to get the address from my quarters."

"Selphie, Irvine, I want you two to leave immediately. Find her."

The two SeeDs nodded.

"Quistis, Zell, Strife, we will still be leaving at oh-eight-hundred for Dollet if Rinoa isn't found by then. If she's left Galbadia for any reason, then she's just as likely to be near the monsters as anywhere else."

Didn't take a genius to read between the lines of all the conversation and figure out Leonhart and Rinoa had been involved at some point. Cloud thought he was handling this rather well.

"Selphie, Irvine, you two are dismissed. The _Ragnarok_ is under regular maintenance, you'll need to take the train."

The two SeeDs saluted smartly and left.

"Strife, I want you to take a full physical with Doctor Kadowaki."

Instantly Cloud felt his jaw tighten. "Why?"

"Because I want a full analysis of your stats. If you've been in the Lifestream for as long as you claim, then I want to know that you're in perfect form before I start trusting you with lives."

A reasonable request. Yeah, fuck that. "No."

The temperature dropped a few more degrees, and was he the only one noticing this phenomenon? "If you won't cooperate, then you'll go by force."

"You couldn't if you tried, Leonhart."

"For Hyne's sake, what's the problem?" Zell demanded, stressed, looking between them with a pinched expression. Cloud was watching Leonhart, saw a black-gloved hand twitch towards the gunblade's hilt, and casually reached up to settle his own on Ultima's pommel. "You got an issue with doctors or something?"

"Doctor Kadowaki is as professional as they come," Quistis said confidently.

Once upon a time, so was Hojo, apparently. "The Lifestream can suspend a body indefinitely," he told Leonhart. "I'm fine."

"I won't risk this mission for an unknown."

Cloud wasn't afraid of these SeeDs, of course, had every reason to believe that they didn't stand a chance of beating his ass senseless and forcing him to a normal doctor's office. The issue was the acrid stench of bleach and stark lights over cold tables, memories as vivid as if they'd happened yesterday because the Cetra _wouldn't let him move on_.

Except this was Jenova already appearing and beginning the chaos, and really, what choice did he have? So he said, "I'll go, _if _you listen to my orders when we catch up to Jenova. Understood?"

It was also a reasonable request, given his greater experience with the damn alien, and after a long moment the commander nodded sharply. Both men relaxed their holds on their respective weapons, but Cloud was already having to consciously suppress the urge to hyperventilate.

Zack tried to reassure him. Maybe she'll give you a lollipop.


	9. Chapter 9

**Word Count**: 2,600**  
Date**: 22 January 2011**  
Note**: Rereading the original…I don't know what I was thinking. I cut out a fuckload of Cloud and Squall's little heart-to-heart because they don't _do _heart-to-hearts with one another, let alone after less than twenty-four hours of antagonism.

* * *

**Imperfect Tense**_**  
Hades' Phoenix**_

**9.**

Friday.

Doctor Kadowaki was a small woman with a pleasant smile that made her look half her actual age. Her pride in her work was reflected in the comfortable cleanliness of the infirmary.

Squall had alerted her that he was bringing in a patient for a physical and that she had ten minutes to prepare, so with an exasperated sigh she started fixing up one of the solitary rooms. The hiss of the infirmary doors opening was followed by the familiar creak of leather and clinking of buckles, and she straightened the spectacles on her nose as she stepped out to meet Squall, Quistis, Zell, and a stranger that was presumably her short-notice patient. At least no one was bleeding out or missing a limb.

"I'm Doctor Kadowaki," she said kindly to the stranger, bowing a little. He seemed restless, eyes flickering with paranoia around the place, and seriously, mercenaries really were the worst sort of patients. His face was pale, but that was probably just anxiety; she didn't see any fever-sweat, flushing, or stiffness.

"…Cloud Strife," he said finally. Sparing a small smile for the SeeDs, she asked them to remain in the waiting room and nudged Cloud towards the single room.

"Take a seat on the bed." She didn't try lightening the mood with humor, not with the way he stood so tensely in the doorway for a few seconds before moving jerkily forwards. Kadowaki busied herself with cleaning a stethoscope so he wouldn't feel cornered under her attention. "Please remove your shirt."

Another silent pause, and then he was slipping off the heavy sword harness and leaning the huge weapon against the wall, within reach. When she finally glanced up he was sitting bare-chested on the edge of the bed, fingers curled under its edge, gaze fixed on the far wall like he was prepared for her to take an axe to his neck. His behavior, and the scars that marked up his body, were nothing she hadn't seen before in her line of work, but barring the fight with Ultimecia there hadn't been many recent occasions for fighters to see a battlefield.

Kadowaki pressed the stethoscope against his chest, said, "Breathe in," heard nothing but clear lungs and a steady, if rapid, heartbeat. Somewhat high blood pressure, but again, probably a side effect of Cloud's obvious anxiety. The glow in his eyes gave her pause, and she considered a spell gone wrong, overdrawing on magic, maybe something to do with the Guardian Forces they still didn't really understand, but when she asked he just said, "It's personal," and refused to clarify.

Taking his hand, patiently waiting for him to work through the reflex to lash out, she rotated his wrist, flexed his arm, moved on to the other. Since Cloud was nearly as thin as Squall and a few inches shorter, the strength she could feel in the muscle under her fingers was…startling. And possibly suspicious, once she turned over his forearm.

"Do you do drugs?" she asked bluntly, examining the pinpoint scars nearly invisible on his fair skin. Her eyes followed the long lines of muscle and sinew, and her brow furrowed when she realized that some of the scars on his body weren't made by weapons or hardship. Only a small, sharp blade from a steady hand could've made those.

"No."

She hummed thoughtfully, although to be fair the track marks _did _look rather old. "So where did they come from?"

"They're not self-inflicted," he muttered, maybe meaning more than just the track marks, and the rawness in his tone made her wonder if maybe he really _was_ telling the truth.

"Cloud, I'm not trying to pry for the sake of gossip. These are things I need to know, especially if you'll be going on missions where other people are relying on you."

He inhaled sharply, but didn't say anything, and with a silent sigh Kadowaki turned to retrieve a syringe. Abruptly Cloud was getting to his feet and yanking his sleeveless top back on.

"Please sit down, I just need a blood sample and it'll only take a minute – "

"No."

"Cloud, _please _sit down."

"I'm fine."

"It'll take me just a few seconds, for Hyne's sake – "

"_No._"

"What's going on?"

Slightly raised voices had summoned Squall to the doorway, arms crossed and expression demanding an answer right the fuck now, please. Kadowaki sighed and put the syringe away, didn't want to cause more of a scene. "It's nothing, Squall, we're fine."

But the commander was holding a staring contest with Cloud, both about as immovable as walls and stubborn as dogs. "Are you afraid of blood, Strife?"

Sudden laughter startled both the commander and the doctor. It was bitter and so far from the definition of 'laughter' that Kadowaki winced. "I've been seen by your doctor and she said I'm fine," Cloud said. "The longer we're here, the less prepared we are to stop Jenova fucking up your Sorceress."

Squall twitched like he'd been bitch-slapped, but it worked. After a long pause he ground out, "Zell will take you to your quarters, Strife. Be prepared to leave by oh-eight-hundred."

…

Hyne, but Selphie could swear that the train ride to Galbadia was taking longer than usual. She'd been spoiled with the sleek beauty and power of _Ragnarok_ under her hands, and now she had nothing to distract her from thoughts of a messy, terrified Rinoa. Beside her Irvine had his feet propped up on an empty seat across the aisle, Exeter leaning against his shoulder, and the sight of the rifle made Selphie's stomach twist. She hoped, hoped, _hoped _it would be unnecessary, even if in all likelihood Rinoa had only gotten worse in the last few hours.

See, Selphie liked Rinoa. More relaxed than Quistis, quicker to laugh, and another girl with whom Selphie could act like the teenager she technically was. The problem was the difference between mercenaries and civilians, and she privately suspected that kind of divide was a big part of Rinoa and Squall breaking apart. She glanced at Irvine and figured she knew what it was like to do that whole caring-for-someone-you-can't-have thing.

"So," she started, swiping Irvine's hat and slouching down to mimic his pose, "whaddya think of Cloud?"

He just shrugged and settled lower in the seat. "I don't trust him."

"You sound like Squally."

"Think about it, darlin'. He comes out of nowhere predicting the return of…well, a Sorceress, for all intents and purposes, and now this thing with Rinoa? Mighty suspicious timing."

"You think Cloud was right? About Knights?"

"I don't know," he sighed, tipping his head back on the seat.

"If he is and Squall ends up getting screwed, I'm gonna be _pissed_," she muttered, folding her arms over her chest and scowling. Irvine smiled in amusement without opening his eyes. "Like, we bust our asses going after Ultimecia, and we get just enough peacetime for us to start getting comfortable before it all blows up in our _faces_."

Eyes still closed, Irvine unerringly reached out and ruffled her hair. "At least you'll be going down with the rest of us, right?"

She poked him in the side and finger-combed her hair straight again when he twitched away. "Damn straight."

It was rather sobering to see the amount of rebuilding and the remaining pockets of destruction in the city, but the people were helpful enough, and before too long Irvine and Selphie were standing in front of a hastily constructed apartment complex. Irvine took the chance to swipe back his hat as he whistled softly.

"Huh. Looks like the princess went down in the world a bit – _ow!_"

Selphie innocently tucked Strange Vision back into her belt and skipped up to the front door. Irvine followed at a more sedate pace, absently tapping Exeter against his shoulder and half-smiling fondly as the woman nearly tripped over her own feet. Coming back to Galbadia, he thought, would've been a lot harder without Selphie here; he might've hated Martine, might've spent a little too much time being entertained out in the city than actually training, but it was the place in which he'd grown up and it was in his blood. And Hyne but he hoped that his weapon wouldn't be the one that would have to take Rinoa out, not after all she'd been doing for this place.

He followed Selphie up the bare wooden stairs inside towards the upper stories. She was counting off door numbers in as many languages as she could, as quickly as she could, because she couldn't just do it like a normal person, before yelling, "This one!"

"Don't forget to knock, darling."

The sound of her fist against the door echoed in the bare hallway, highlighting just how empty the building seemed. They shared a glance before she called out hesitantly, "Rinoa, you in there? It's Selphie. Can I come in?"

When the silence stretched, Irvine quietly flicked off Exeter's safety. Selphie knocked again. "Rinoa?"

"Let's go," Irvine murmured, and Selphie grabbed hold of her nunchuks and pushed at the door. It swung open without protest, which was, yeah, strange, and then Selphie said, "Holy Hyne."

When she turned on the light, Irvine saw that what must've originally been a cozy little apartment turned into the aftermath of a small hurricane. Every glass or porcelain object, including the window, was shattered and laying in razor-sharp pieces on nearly every flat surface, and Irvine realized that his boots were crunching on slowly melting ice.

"Well, shit," Selphie muttered.

Irvine huffed with tense laughter as he covered the rest of the apartment, a small bedroom and a tiny bathroom. He shook his head. "She's not here."

"Who're you?"

Both SeeDs whirled around, weapons raised, and the blonde girl in the doorway squeaked with terror.

"Sorry, sorry!" Selphie cried, hurriedly ducking her nunchuks behind her back with a forcibly wide grin. "You kinda surprised us. We're SeeDs. We're, uh, friends of Rinoa's."

"SeeDs?" the girl repeated blankly, eyes fixed on Exeter.

Irvine quickly lowered the barrel and automatically relaxed into a lazy slouch, flicking the wide brim of his hat. The girl blushed. "We're looking for Rinoa, sweetheart, you seen her?"

"Uh, y-yeah, I've seen her, we've had lunch together a few times."

"Well, ain't that a coincidence." Irvine smiled like every cowboy and buccaneer who'd ever charmed the petticoats off a pretty lady. "You know where she is now? We're thinking she might be in some trouble, but we can't help her 'til we find her."

"Um, I don't know. She stopped showing up to work a couple days ago. She wasn't looking very well, but she kept saying everything was fine."

"Any idea where she might've gone?" Selphie picked up. "Maybe she mentioned another friend?"

The girl shook her head, a little wildly. Selphie leaned towards Irvine and said from the side of her mouth, "I'll let you be the one to tell Squall we couldn't find her."

…

The Garden's guest quarters had been built near the entrance, owing to the greater security and closeness of the conference rooms. They were larger than the typical two-person cadet dorms, came complete with their own kitchenette and full bathroom, but were also about as practical and simple as one might expect from a mercenary facility.

Hours after Zell had showed him to his new accommodations, Cloud was still sitting at the dining table and staring out the small, slightly open window that overlooked one of the Garden's courtyards. He hadn't noticed the sun setting, the gloom slowly settling over the room. Not even a full day had passed since he'd met the SeeDs and it already felt like years, and he. He probably shouldn't be alone. Not with the way the quiet was starting to press in on his skull. Except the only person he really wanted to see was dead from a minor case of firing squad.

Sometimes you gotta laugh so you don't go insane, Zack said, but Cloud didn't think that was very helpful advice when thinking about being flat on your back while someone else made pretty designs in your flesh with a scalpel. He didn't hear the door hissing open behind him.

("_Specimen C is responding beautifully. The childhood influence of mako on his immune system is working in our favor.")_

Ultima was suddenly in his hand and whistling through the air before Cloud realized he'd even moved, the blade's edge a breadth from Leonhart's throat. He blinked. _Pay attention_, Zack always used to say.

Leonhart waited for Cloud to lower his weapon and prop it back up against a chair before bracing a hip on the table's edge. Cloud went back to staring out the window, thinking that it smelled like it was going to rain soon.

Leonhart stared at him.

Brick walls, said Zack.

"Selphie told me about Seifer," Cloud said, and Leonhart twitched. "She said you two were close." Well, sort of.

"We were enemies," Leonhart replied in the kind of tone that suggested he ate ice cubes and frozen steaks as a midwinter snack. Cloud glanced sideways at the scar running over Leonhart's nose and thought about the Masamune, sliding so smoothly through his heart while cracking ribs, and wondered, _Is there a difference?_

"What does it matter?" Leonhart asked.

Cloud's immediate response was to say that it didn't, but that'd be a lie. "Depends on you," he said instead. "Whether it's Rinoa that cracks or Seifer, or hell, both, they might come after you specifically." He paused. "Or vice versa, if you're the one that goes."

He still wasn't sure if Sephiroth's fascination with him had been because of Cloud himself, or because of the bits of _Zack _in him, and he wasn't sure which was worse. Judging from the tense way Leonhart was holding himself at the edge of Cloud's vision, Cloud's words weren't hitting far from the mark.

"You said Jenova had a Knight before. What was his relationship to you?"

In all likelihood Leonhart hadn't meant that the way it _sounded_, except Cloud was already thinking about hot skin between the sheets, few spoken words, only ever in the dark. _I'm worried_, Zack's expression always said in the mornings where Cloud winced if he moved without thinking.

Figuring he should throw Leonhart a bone, he just said, "Sephiroth was my commanding officer."

"And that's why you were there the last time Jenova appeared?"

Sure, why not, as good a reason as any and better than most. "I killed her." Cloud's eyes slid over to Leonhart without his head turning. "Which is why you all need to listen to my orders when we find her, even with all those ice magic shows you've been putting on."

"I'm Junctioned to Shiva," Leonhart said, as though that explained everything. Cloud had no idea what that meant, but whatever. "Did you also kill Sephiroth?"

Cloud

(_"Thank you, Cloud," Ultima sliding so smoothly through his heart while cracking ribs, so much blood running down the blade and over Cloud's hands, streaking pale naked flesh_)

blinked several times and said calmly, "Yes."

…

Squall had developed this habit, in times of crisis or other people's stupidity, of just putting his head down and bulling through it as efficiently and effectively as he could. But now Strife was implying a correlation between past relationships and future obsessing from crazy people, and if Rinoa and Seifer were going to be involved – well.

(_"This doesn't make us BFFs, Puberty Boy."_)

(_"Whatever._")

This might get awkward.


	10. Chapter 10

**Word Count**: 2,700**  
Date**: 16 September 2011

* * *

**Imperfect Tense**_**  
jukeboxhound**_

**(because I did indeed change my pseudonym, hush)**

**10.**

Friday evening.

Considering the circumstances, Vincent supposed it could've been a lot worse. At least the hallucinations hadn't affected Seifer's talent for being a jackass.

"You _ass-raping _mother_fucking_ dickwad, keep those _fucking _tentacles to yourself – "

Then again, an entirely unexpected wave of monsters when only a day had passed after the first might justify Seifer's irritation. Vincent was scolding himself for thinking that they had more time before the monsters that he'd followed from the north would hit the town, but he'd underestimated them, and so now he was crouched on the roof of a cottage while Seifer took out his frustration at the world in the street below. Seifer would've done Cid proud.

Raijin and Fujin never strayed far from Seifer's blind spots as they cut their way through flailing limbs and mutated bodies. Just a few hours before, the Dollet residents had been dragging dead monster bits to a large bonfire outside the city, had already been worn down with the exercise when the first of the Jenova spawn's unnatural screams had drifted through the air. Vincent just thought, _Of course the beasts would show up when we're at our weakest_. The day had begun with a red dawn (and an awkward breakfast of cold cereal and dark glares from Seifer) and he'd remembered Cid's old sailor's superstitions.

Claw streaked with filth and gods knew what kind of bodily fluids, human hand bracing Death Penalty as he sniped into the horde from the low roof of a guest cottage, the cries of the townspeople rolled over him in a blanket of déjà vu – Meteor, the twisting of metal as buildings came down on the heads of Midgar's citizens. A number of Dollet's people were former military, he could tell, but not all, and he pulled off a flying leap that would've made the Gold Saucer's acrobats jealous to smash his clawed hand through the skull of a monster determined to eat a screaming little kid. The monster thrashed as it died and the kid scrambled away, hopefully somewhere that had fewer predators trying to kill him. Vincent ducked down behind a low garden wall, absently shaking the gore from his claw as he looked around the chaotic mass of battles for his three hosts.

"DIE."

"Where the _fuck _are they coming from?"

"Can't they tell they're totally outclassed, yanno?"

There they were. Shoving a fresh clip into Death Penalty, Vincent slid like a shadow over the wall and came up behind Seifer, putting a bullet through something's eye just before the gunblade sliced its head off. He'd been keeping part of his attention on Seifer, watching for any sign of a sudden urge to proclaim godhood or destroy the earth in the name of his mother.

"Yo, vampire," Seifer was shouting, "I'm not kidding, where the fuck did these things come from?"

"The north," Vincent said shortly. A flailing tentacle forced him back towards the wall, and a moment later Seifer dropped down beside him with his chest heaving and face drawn with exhaustion. _He shouldn't be fighting so strenuously_, but he just checked Death Penalty's ammunition while Seifer panted heavily.

"Real fucking helpful," Seifer snarked, and if Vincent had been any less of a strictly self-controlled and classy person he might have rolled his eyes. When Seifer opened his mouth to demonstrate another dazzling moment of wit but nothing came out, Vincent looked at him sideways and narrowed his eyes when saw the gobsmacked expression smeared across Seifer's face. A second later Seifer blinked several times and muttered something that was probably meant to be reassuring but was actually vaguely insulting, but at least he was still holding his gunblade firmly and his gaze was otherwise steady.

(What happened was that Seifer had been about to tell this Valentine where to shove his cryptic bullshit when something shifted inside his head, and suddenly the vampire looked a few years younger, hair cropped short, red cloak replaced with a neat business suit. Valentine raised a handheld device to his mouth and hissed, _"Valentine to Turk base, target eliminated – "_ and then whatever had cracked was slipped back into place and Seifer was looking at the vampire version again.)

"Later," Vincent said shortly, oblivious, "we're not done here yet."

…

"I _knew _I should've brought my booms. Then we wouldn't be having this problem."

"Your 'booms'?"

"A bit of nitro, some gunpowder, and _boom!_" Selphie clapped her hands to emphasize her point and some of the people in the train station jumped. Irvine grinned.

"Somehow, love, I don't see your booms being well appreciated here."

"You just don't have any imagination."

Irvine raised a brow. "Funny, that's not what I've been told," he said. He earned a solid punch that made his arm go numb and an eloquent, "_Ew!_"

They shuffled forward a few steps in as many minutes, and after some time unabashedly eavesdropping on the people around them Selphie was starting to bounce on the balls of her feet again. She tried craning over the crowd to see the train.

"I can lift you up if you want," Irvine volunteered. His magnanimous gesture had nothing to do with her short yellow dress, no sir.

"Down, boy," she snorted, still balancing on the tips of her toes. "You'd have more luck with Squally."

That was…not a mental image Irvine was prepared for. "I think I'm happy being the lone stud in the pasture, darlin'," he said dryly, but Selphie was suddenly just looking thoughtful.

"I wonder, was Rinoa, like, his _first?_"

"How should I know? I never went to Balamb." He wouldn't have been around to hear all the gossip that was wielded like a ninja weapon among the student body, and it was just weird to think about it, like putting 'sex' and 'parents' in the same sentence.

"I don't remember seeing him with anyone, but maybe it was before I transferred from Trabia," Selphie mused aloud, and Irvine mentally groaned, resigning himself to an hour of a bored Selphie entertaining herself with an examination of Squall's hitherto unknown, and irrelevant, sex life. "Well, he and Seifer were always at each other's throats, but I never really saw him with a girl."

"Maybe he likes a bit of variety," said Irvine, and Selphie scrunched up her nose.

"What, you mean like him and Seifer? No way."

"Maybe he's asexual." And if that were the case, then maybe Selphie would drop the subject.

Blowing a raspberry at him, she said more seriously, "He never did actually tell us why Rinoa left, though. You think it had anything to do with her being, y'know, a Sorceress?"

"I don't know," he said quietly, not wanting to be overheard. "If either of them knew something was wrong with her, though, then she wouldn't have actually left the Garden. Better she be around SeeDs who can handle themselves than civilians."

"Yeah, true," Selphie muttered. "Hyne damn it."

The curl in her hair was drooping along with her mood. A little embarrassed to admit it, Irvine said, "I'm…worried. Too, I mean," but the awkwardness was worth it when Selphie slid an arm under his coat and around his waist.

To prevent the moment from becoming too saccharine, screams suddenly erupted from the crowds nearest the trains accompanied by the screech of tearing, grinding metal. Immediately Selphie and Irvine were running forward, weapons in hand. Irvine swore passionately under his breath when he nearly tripped over a woman dashing towards the exits in the stream of panicked civilians.

There was another wave of screams and then the unmistakable sound of meat hitting the ground. By the time they got to the tracks, several half-occupied train cars had been twisted into an unrecognizable mess of steel and splintered wood, broken bodies scattered through the wreckage. Irvine spun around, looking for an explanation as to what the hell had just happened.

_**Where is he?**_

It was Rinoa's voice, if her larynx had been surgically replaced with a broken violin. There was a quality to it that had the potential to be heartbreakingly beautiful but instead grated like a fork scraping a plate, reverberating in their chests, their heads. Irvine wasn't sure if he was hearing it with his ears or his mind and he gritted his teeth, ignoring the way his eyes started watering.

_**Where is he?**_

_Who? _Irvine wondered wildly as Selphie yelled, "Jenova, right? Come out and try again, I wanna know if you have tentacles."

Of _course _it was Jenova, and oh shit, he knew that there was going to be a world of hurt in his near future. But when Jenova appeared, it wasn't the flailing eldritch horror he'd been expecting from Strife's description but plain, human Rinoa, still in her work clothes as she picked her way over the wreckage with all the imperial grace of a princess. There was a snide joke in there somewhere, Irvine just knew it, except most princesses weren't possessed by aliens and didn't look at loved ones like they were something to be crushed under her boots. His glove creaked as he tightened his grip on Exeter.

_**You believe you can kill a god?**_

Not really, Irvine thought, but there were worse ways to die than going out in a blaze of futile, heroic glory. The retorts of Exeter's sudden stream of bullets and Selphie's summoning of Carbuncle were nearly drowned out by the continued panic in the rest of the train station, which was abruptly cut off as a wave of compressed power swept aside the bullets and through the rest of the station. The people that hadn't yet managed to escape instantly dropped dead to the ground in ringing silence.

"Oh fuck," Irvine moaned softly as Carbuncle hurriedly cast Shell on them and ran squealing back to the ether.

The next few minutes of his life were a blur of sound and magic and the warmth of Exeter's barrel beneath his fingers, Selphie yelling and fierce at his side. Jenova's magic pummeled at their swiftly waning protection until Irvine's Shell shattered like sugar glass and an icicle grazed his side, so cold it seared, and Selphie suddenly went down with a sharp cry and too much blood spattering the station floor to be healthy. Irvine immediately dropped to his knees at her side, and through the haze of pain Irvine could've sworn he saw tears on Rinoa's face.

…

"_I – "_

_Cloud's voice choked on a moan when Sephiroth pulled him upright from the bed, Cloud's legs falling open over Sephiroth's thighs. There was a hand spread between his shoulder blades and another gripping one of his hips so tightly it was going to be painful wearing his stiff uniform belt tomorrow, and he had to scramble for balance by wrapping his arms around Sephiroth's shoulders. His fingers twined themselves through long hair as Sephiroth – as he – _

"Cloud."

"_Do you love me, Cloud?"_

"_I – "_

"Oi, Cloud!"

_Nibelheim's winters were always so cold_.

He jerked awake and nearly fell off the chair in which he'd apparently managed to fall asleep, head pillowed on his forearms. He discretely tried to wipe away the wetness on his cheek before realizing it wasn't drool at all but a couple tears. Oh boy, said Zack as Cloud took a moment to remember he wasn't in the Nibelheim inn but one of the guest quarters in Balamb Garden, that it was a pleasant early-morning breeze coming in through a partially open window and not a freezing one.

"Cloud, are you still alive in there or do I need the doc to call a time of death?"

Back popping as he straightened, he automatically checked Ultima (propped within reach against the nearest wall) and opened the door, taking a step back as Zell, ear pressed to said door, toppled inside.

"Hi," grinned Zell from the floor. "Squall wanted to make sure everyone's ready to leave in like fifteen minutes. He hasn't heard from Irvine or Selphie yet, but I mean, we're just as likely to find Rinoa in a city full of Jenova-monsters before it's too late, right?"

"It's always too late," Cloud muttered under his breath as he let the door hiss close again, and Zack said, Dear gods, kiddo, you sound like you're worried about missing your period.

(Zell heard the mutter as he got back to his feet and thought back to earlier that morning, when Squall had strode into the commander's office where he and Quistis were waiting. When Quistis asked, _So what did you find out_, Squall had given them a long thoughtful look and replied, _We can trust him_. Which had nearly floored Zell, who'd been pretty convinced that Squall and Cloud acted like two porcupines forced into close quarters with one another.)

"Rough night?" Zell asked lightly.

"You could say that," Cloud said neutrally, and relaxed a little when Zell went on, "I think we'll just go straight to the _Ragnarok_, the mechanics have finished all their doo-hickey things."

Swinging Ultima into place on his back, Cloud followed Zell into the hallway. That an experienced mercenary was willing to ever-so-casually turn his back towards Cloud didn't go unnoticed or, on some level, unappreciated. "Does it take that long for maintenance?"

"Well, _Ragnarok's _pretty damn expensive, you know? She's the fastest ship we've got."

Quistis was already waiting for them in the hangar, sitting on the entrance ramp with her legs crossed at the knee and a stack of what looked like the Estharian reports on her lap. "I thought we'd look these over again on the way," she said as Cloud and Zell approached. She looked up, paused, and tilted her head slightly. "If you scribbled on your face with black marker and slicked your hair back a little," she told Cloud, "you two might be able to pass as twins."

Zell scowled at the insult to his totally tough and manly tattoos and stomped into the airship.

"Leonhart?" Cloud demanded.

"He'll be here in a few minutes." Her smile faded. "He's been up all night waiting for Selphie and Irvine to call in, but there still hasn't been a single word. It's possible they just got held up somewhere."

No one was taking bets on that. She shrugged helplessly and Cloud wished he knew what to say to reassure her. 'They're not important enough to her, Jenova probably would've killed them quickly'?

Zell was at the _Ragnarok'_s controls and was explaining to a disinterested and increasingly nauseous Cloud the basics of piloting when Leonhart finally arrived precisely one minute after eight o'clock. He was visibly tenser than usual, which made Zack wonder how the guy didn't snap his own spine in half and hey, Cloud, do you think there might be a sexy little masseuse somewhere in this Garden?

"Any word?" Quistis asked immediately, and Leonhart said, "No. I've given Xu clearance to all secure channels and she'll contact us if Selphie or Irvine report in. Zell, take us to Dollet."

"Aye-aye, Captain," Zell saluted without enthusiasm. There was a moment in which the airship lurched and took Cloud's stomach with it.

"Strife," Leonhart said sharply, motioning for Cloud to follow him towards a window away from the other two. Cloud did so silently, bracing himself against the wall and crossing his arms with a level stare while Leonhart gripped the metal windowsill and leaned forward, head hanging between his shoulders.

"Strife," he said again, then more quietly, "Cloud. There's no hope, is there?"

His lips were set in a hard line, expression bordering on haggard. This is what happens when we send children to war, Sephiroth murmured, and Zack said, This is what they did to us, too.

"You know I had to kill Sephiroth," Cloud said finally. Leonhart – well, let's be fair, Cloud supposed wryly, it was 'Squall' now – looked at him from the corner of his eyes.

"He was important to you." _As something more than just a commanding officer_, Squall didn't say.

"Yes."

Squall's quiet laugh was unpleasant to hear.


	11. Chapter 11

**Word Count**: 2,500**  
Date**: 20 September 2011**  
Note**: Yes, the dog that humps Seifer's leg in _FFVIII _is now named Reno, that isn't a mistake. I'm also starting to get the sense that I have a certain fondness for zombies. Also also: I haven't forgotten _Eir's Tomorrow, _I know how it's going to end even if I haven't written it yet, but one thing at a time. This particular story just needs an overhaul and then three or four new chapters to wrap it up, and voila.

I know I don't reply to all the comments on this site, but I'm grateful to everyone who leaves feedback. Thanks. :)

* * *

**Imperfect Tense**_**  
jukeboxhound**_

**11.**

There was a lull in the battle as the monsters finally backed off enough to allow the humans a chance to lick their wounds. Raijin was clasping a hand to the bloodied gash on his other arm as Seifer scowled and kicked at a monster carcass. Fujin and Vincent were looking over their weapons, the former cleaning the gore from her chakram and the latter cleaning his gun barrel, and when he'd sufficiently drawn out the silence Vincent stowed Death Penalty in the subspace under his cloak and looked out over the battlefield.

"This town's gonna be a genocide if those _fucking _monsters – " Seifer kicked the corpse again viciously, " – don't give up and run away."

"DO NOW?"

"Why don't we ask the vampire?" The pounding in Seifer's head was slowly getting worse, exacerbated by so much exertion and the inability to use magic without feeling like his soul was being torn in half (or like an addict, the magic an intoxicating high).

"The monsters won't give up until they're all dead," said Vincent, like the cheerful guy he was. "The only instinct they have now is to kill. Only someone with Jenova in his or her body can control them."

Seifer eyed him. "What if you're a horror sideshow?"

Fujin kicked him in the shin. Bitch.

"Uh, shouldn't we have, like, a plan or something, yanno?" Raijin asked tentatively, automatically looking to Seifer, who crossed his arms, leaned against a bent iron fence, and raised a brow at Vincent to cover up the fact that the fence was only thing holding him upright at the moment. He blinked and _he saw Valentine again, short hair and suit, lying on a laboratory floor with a bullet in his heart – _

He was distantly thankful for his leather gloves when he nearly fell flat on his face and had to grab the fence to catch himself. A heavy hand clamped onto his shoulder and Raijin asked worriedly, "Seifer, you okay?"

"'M fine," he muttered distractedly, absently pressing the fingers of his other hand against his forehead.

"Excuse me, sirs and ma'am," came a stranger's shaky voice, "th-the mayor's declared this city under siege. We've sent messages to the Gardens for help, but until the SeeDs get here…what should we do?"

The speaker was a young fisherman carrying a bloodied spear, its wooden shaft well-worn and aged. Behind him were others with varying types of weapons, but only a few wore the uniforms of soldiers. Seifer huffed a laugh. Shrugging off Raijin's hand, he glanced at his posse and found them all staring at _him_, and it took an embarrassingly long moment for him to realize that they were waiting for the guy who'd tried ambushing a president during a live broadcast surrounded by soldiers to come up with a damn plan. Once upon a time this dashing knight would indeed have taken up his sword and led his men to battle – except he'd tried that, hadn't he? And he hadn't been very successful, unless one considered 'mass mayhem, near genocide, and chronic insanity' as something to be listed on a person's job history. Hell, he was more likely to get these men and women _killed_, he was still too much of that needy little boy with big dreams and no one that loved him.

But then Seifer happened to glance at Fujin and Raijin and the two were watching him patiently, as though he'd never abandoned or used them, and he thought of Leonhart, who had never believed in good or evil, only perspectives.

"Every person who knows a thing or two about killing shit, grab something pointy and prepare to haul ass," he said loudly. "If you can't, get all medical and food supplies plus all the kids to the safest area in this place. We'll also need a squad out here to start collecting the dead – Hyne knows how long these fuckers'll keep coming, and if we don't get a start on burning this shit then we may as well kill ourselves." Hey, he never claimed to be any sort of keynote speaker. "Raijin, help these bastards with the supplies, you know the most about that kind of shit. Fu, make sure they burn those bodies at the edge of town, we don't need that ash getting everywhere."

The two grinned and shot him smart salutes before setting off into the crowd and bullying the people into teams. Pretending he wasn't getting the start of warm fuzzies on the inside, Seifer turned to Vincent with a smirk and gestured at the variety of kitchen and fishing tools.

"And you and me, my dear vampire, are going to see just how bad this whole thing really is."

…

One of the Dollet citizens was a young, unmarried man named Josephine Wiseley (but call him Joe, please, he _hated _his name, which had come from his long-dead grandmother and his mother's burning wish to have a little girl) and the last few days of his life had been nothing less than nightmarish. Last surviving family slaughtered by monsters, clothes stained with a variety of bodily fluids, and his watercolor paintings long ripped to shreds, he stood in a sort of numbed shock with a crowd that had settled in Dollet's main square near the fountain where Reno usually ran about. Joe distantly prayed that the poor dog had gotten away in time.

"Any of you poor bastards got any experience?" asked the big blond guy in the trenchcoat, gunblade resting on a shoulder. He was tall and lean and scarred and looked suspiciously like a certain Sorceress' Knight.

There was a susurrus of mixed 'yes' and 'no' from the crowd. Joe had always considered himself a lover, not a fighter, that the pen was mightier than the sword and all that jazz, but he was starting to regret it even more than his unfortunate name.

"Well, fuck," said the blond with cheerful cynicism. "All right then, folks, here's what we're gonna do. I'm Seifer Almasy – yeah, _that _guy, but I'm also the guy that's going to give you your best chance of survival, so you can suck it up and challenge me to a duel after all this is over. Me and Valentine here are going to try our best to make sure that at least you know which end of your weapon should be pointed at the monsters."

"Do any of you _not _have a reason to fight?" said Valentine in this dark, ominous kind of voice that made Joe shudder a little. No one said anything, but hands tightened with grim determination around makeshift weapons, and that seemed to be enough. When Almasy started barking out orders like a boss and Vincent moved through the crowd with calm efficiency, Joe began to hope that maybe it wasn't all as hopeless as it seemed.

…

"It's fucking hopeless."

Thursday morning. Vincent looked over at Seifer, who was watching the first grey beginnings of dawn spread over the town as they sat on the edge of a roof. The night had passed without incident, except maybe when someone dropped a spear on his foot, and Seifer and Vincent had finally sent the civilians to go rest while they could. Having spent a good portion of the previous evening and that night putting the civilians through their paces with the help of more experienced soldiers, Vincent had silently come to the same conclusion.

But at least the self-inflicted, accidental damage had been kept to a minimum, even with Seifer's impatience and Vincent's mild tendency towards perfectionism. The majority of the monster carcasses had been dragged just outside the town's limits and set on fire both for sanitation and a deterrent to whatever was still alive and tentacled, although judging from the looks Fujin was sending Seifer, Vincent had a feeling he was going to find something squishy and possibly toxic in his boots at some point. Rough blockades of sandbags, concrete, and miscellaneous materials had been set up across as many roads and alleyways as they could manage.

(Vincent had caught himself unconsciously picking out those people more dangerous than the others, ones that had a Turk's understated ruthlessness or a SOLDIER's innovative strength. A possible strategy had occurred to him and, in the back of his mind, CHAOS smiled toothily.)

"There was something said about gardens and seeds," said Vincent quietly. "What are they to these people?"

"Seriously?" said Seifer incredulously. "What crypt have _you _been living in?"

Vincent didn't say anything. He certainly didn't feel a pang of nostalgia or homesickness or something for sleepless nights on the _Highwind _playing cards and being passive-aggressive about Cid's abominable taste in brandy.

"You know what Sorceresses are, right?"

"No." If there was a note of sardonic amusement in his voice at Seifer's bewilderment, it was entirely justified.

"Women with way too much power. Don't get me wrong, I've known women with bigger balls than a lot of guys, but the Sorceresses." He paused. "_No one _should have that much power. Gardens are the places where poor assholes are trained to be SeeDs to fight back."

"Your hallucinations are connected to these Sorceresses." It wasn't really a question, and Seifer gave him a twisted smirk and said, "Yeah, I was a Knight, right-hand man to the big bad. Take my advice, Valentine – a chick offers to take you beyond the point of no return, she ain't talking about a fucking blowjob."

_This _story wasn't sounding to start sound familiar, was it? At least it explained why Seifer was receiving messages from people who were nominally dead, why the rhythms of the Planet had woken Vincent in the first place.

"Almasy, Valentine!" a voice cried from the street below, and Seifer leaned over the edge of the roof all suave and as though he were totally in control. It was a youth named Joe, who threw a sloppy salute and yelled, "Someone saw some movement outside the city!"

"Time to play," Seifer shouted back, leaping off the roof. His boots thudded solidly on the cobblestone.

"But what about the SeeDs?" the boy demanded frantically. "They haven't arrived yet – "

"Except a monster took out the receiver, dumbass, so we don't know if they even got the message. If they did, it's gonna take time to be approved, _if _it's approved, and by the time the SeeDs get off their asses you'll already be something's chew toy. So _move your ass_."

The kid scuttled off as Vincent landed lightly next to Seifer.

"Moron," Seifer muttered, hefting Hyperion. CHAOS stirred again, restless.

…

One of the questions that were probably plaguing people's minds was, _Where the hell were all these monsters _coming _from?_

Good question, too. They came in droves of wriggling limbs and dripping fangs and contorted bodies like something out of those B-grade horror movies Yuffie had loved so much, but it was the sheer _scale _of them that was the most mind-boggling. If the first two days of Dollet being under siege (again) was bad, the third was practically a slaughter.

"Where are they _coming _from?" Seifer demanded, yelling over the roar of weird howls and screams as his bullets splattered brain matter in a rather artistic manner over the pavement.

"JENOVA," Fujin yelled back, her chakram spinning out long spirals of blood. Vincent's claw was beginning to stiffen with all the gore choking up the jointed plates and Death Penalty's bullets – nicked from an unsuspecting outdoorsman on the coast outside the city – weren't exactly in endless supply. He retreated to the top of a building to snipe at what he could, as quickly and efficiently as he could, to save who he could.

(_"Every life is precious," Lucrecia said quietly as she fiddled with some flasks, her back to Vincent so she didn't have to see his expression of horror and disbelief._

_("They why – how _could _you – ")_

_("Please understand, Vincent, the Ancients' power could be what saves the Planet. Sometimes the needs of the many outweigh the needs of a few.")_

Vincent very much disliked that saying, if 'dislike' in this instance were a synonym for the sensation of drowning while a mob held him under. _("What you're doing to an unborn _child- ") But down the sight of Death Penalty's barrel there were people and monsters dying, makeshift weapons and hurriedly-built barricades not quite enough to stem the tide, and as much as he preferred the role of the Uncaring Stoic Gunman even Vincent had a line drawn in the sand. He stripped out of clothes that weren't his and folded them neatly, setting them aside near a ventilation pipe with Death Penalty lying neatly on top. He felt wrung out, used, and very, very old as he closed his eyes, turned inward to CHAOS, and said _yes_.

Skin and muscle shredded and great dark wings exploded from his back, oily blackness spreading over his body like poison. Fingernails turned to talons that scraped and cracked the roof tiles as Vincent curled over himself in shivering pain.

…

"We'll be there in a few minutes," Zell called back from the cockpit, and continued in a suddenly panicked voice, "Holy shit, Squall, Quisty, look!"

Squall, Quistis, and Cloud immediately pressed their noses against the windows, squinting against the reflection of sunlight glittering over the ocean. It took a long moment to realize what they seeing.

"Holy shit," Quistis echoed faintly. Squall's hand tightened around Lion Heart's hilt. "We'd know if there was another Lunatic Pandora incident, right?"

"Here we go again," Cloud sighed.

"Welcome to Dollet," Zell muttered dryly.

Quistis pointed at a creature larger than the others, black with scarlet wings and enormous horns and a roar that shook the _Ragnarok_ even as high in the air as they were. It wreaked havoc among the monsters like a kid kicking over all his toy dinosaurs, only bloodier and with more death.

"Maybe someone switched Dollet and Hell when we weren't looking." Zell looked a little green.

Squall was instead watching Cloud, the way his unnaturally vivid eyes narrowed, then widened.

"What is it?"

"CHAOS," said Cloud with a slightly unhinged smile that made Squall wonder, not for the first time, if the guy was actually playing with a full Triple Triad deck. As long as Cloud could swing that sword in the direction of their enemies, however, then Squall wasn't going to give a shit, especially not when Rinoa (_or Seifer_) might be trapped below. A commander had to have priorities.


End file.
